Japan 5: Nissan, where union goon squads lay into dissidents
Socialist Organiser1980sTranscribed by hand from the printed page.
Ford bosses in Halewood openly model their plans "After Japan". In the last of the series on Japan, the grim prototype.
I HAVE tried, in this series of articles, to give a flavour of the conditions faced by the working class in Japan; the dominance of the yellow unions in the major manufacturing industries and the tremendous control Japanese management is able to exercise over the workers through those unions.
Such a picture, however, would be far from complete if I did not say something about a 'union' which, as far as I can see, excells, even in Japanese terms, in the despotic rule it systematically imposes on its members on behalf of the employers.
I am talking of the notorious yellow union at Nissan, which is affiliated to the Federation of Japan Auto Workers — Jidosha Roren.
Nissan — maker of the Datsun — is Japan's second largest vehicle producer.
Whilst in Japan I was privileged to discuss with a group of workers from the Nissan Kawaguchi heavy truck and bus plant in the Northern suburbs of Tokyo.
These workers have waged a courageous fight for many years against the brutal Nissan Union/management set up, including physical assaults by union goon squads.
Not enough
One of the workers I met in particular, Yoshiji Azuma (who has been 10 years in the Kawaguchi plant), was personally beaten by goons, and union officials, when he argued at a lunch time meeting that the demands of the 1981 wage claim were not high enough.
(At Nissan the 'claim' is fixed behind the scenes with the Company before it is publicly announced so that agreement is always reached).
Azuma was eventually forced to go to the police after repeated physical attacks, illegal confinements, abuse, threats and intimidation over the course of a month.
This case is not the exception but the real face of the Nissan 'union'. Its leaders see themselves as a campaigning force for yellow unions on behalf of the Japanese employers as a whole.
It is an affiliate not just of Jidosha Roren but also of the ultra right wing IMF-JC Federation.
The Nissan union in its present form was founded on violence.
When Nissan merged with the Prince Automobile Company in 1965 there were two unions in the new company. The Nissan union which even then was reactionary and affiliated to the Domei Federation; and the union from Prince Auto, Zenkin, which belonged to Sohyo.
Dissolved
As soon as the merger was completed the Nissan union demanded that Zenkin be disolved and the member join the Nissan union.
Many of the activists in Zenkin were opposed to being absorbed by a yellow union and refused to join.
Many of them were beaten up by goon squads and subjected to physical assaults in various ways. Zenkin was forced to take legal actions for such assaults against over 50 officials of the Nissan union.
The bureaucrats who control the Nissan union also have means of intimidation other than physical violence.
In 1979 seven militant workers from the Atsuzi Parts plant were expelled by the Nissan union for persistently campaigning for trade union democracy. Because of the closed shop they were promptly sacked by the Company.
After they were sacked, militant activists in the area mounted a defence campaign to demand their reinstatement. Supporters of the campaign were promptly beaten up by goons and had their cars smashed.
Ideological
I don't want to give the impression, however, that the Nissan union rules its members of behalf of management simply through fear and intimidation; far from it. Like all the big yellow unions in Japan it has sophisticated methods of political and ideological control of the workers.
[Photograph. Caption: Japanese militants demonstrate against plans to merge the more militant Sohyo unions with the yellow Domei federation]
The Nissan union does have influence. It is much more powerful in a formal sense than for example the yellow union at Toyota — which is structurally broadly similar.
It has to be consulted by management for example before a worker can be moved from one job to another. The union President has to be consulted before a promotion at any level can take place. Even at multi-national level it has considerable influence in, for example, investment policy or the decision to build a plant in another country.
The Nissan union makes its assessment of the labour relations in a country where a plant is to be built — and may veto the decision if it assesses that militant unions are likely to be established.
It has been reported, for example, that the President of the Nissan Union Shioji Ichiro went to Mexico in 1981 to ensure that no militant unions were established in the new Nissan plant there.
The question of how that influence is used, however, is adequately answered by the Nissan unions slogan — 'The Company's Prosperity'. It is a slogan that the union sets out in the most determined way to make a reality.
In addition to the generalised methods of Japanese management (which have been described in previous articles) in such as QC circles, wage rates based on loyalty assessments, etc. — all of which of course operate within Nissan to great effect, Nissan has some systems of its own.
Nissan has a slogan 'Productivity, Progress and Participation' — summarised as 'P-3'.
This refers to the 'Economic Co-operation Committees'. It is a land of ultimate in 'Worker participation' — as its name suggests.
Hard to oppose
These committees are established at every level in the Company. There, all Company decisions are put to the 'union reps' and endorsed, thus making everything joint union/management policy and much more difficult for anyone to oppose.
Another feature of Nissan is the degree of integration between the inidividuals who staff the 'union' and those who staff the management.
This has reached the point where a period as a 'union official' becomes a recognised part of the career training of a top manager. If the Company decides that one of its managers should become a union official it simply gives them an instruction to that effect: they then go off and become a union official.
A few years later management will probably decide that they have gained their experience and return them to a formal management position.
The 'democracy' in the Nissan union which allows and facilitates such incredible practices must be the envy of Frank Chapple or Terry Duffy. It operates in the following way:
Shop stewards, the lowest level of representation, usually covering about 10 workers, are not elected but appointed by the senior shop steward.
The members are then asked to endorse the nomination at a morning meeting. Those nominated are invariably unanimously endorsed since the implications for a worker raising an objection to the Senior Stewards nomination are far reaching.
In the history of the union no nominated candidated has failed to get elected.
The election of a Senior Shop Steward is even less 'democratic'. The nomination for this post is decided by a committee appointed by the union. There is no other way to be nominated therefore there is never more than one nomination.
Having only one candidate, however, is not enough for the bureaucracy. They demand a 100% vote for that candidate. Anything less would undermine the authority of the union in front of the management (?).
They can achieve this due to the voting procedures. The workers line up at the ballot box to have their names checked off. They then fill in the ballot form on a table in front of the foreman. Under these conditions it is very rare that a blank paper is returned. If it does, an enquiry usually occurs to try to establish how it happened.
It can easily be seen by this method how the management can put their people in and out of the union structure.
[Photograph. Caption: Militaristic Prime Minister Nakasone: Nissan workers' views on him are kept on file]
In the same way that 'elections' obtain 99% votes, so do policy decisions. Major management/Participation decisions are taken in front of section meetings and mass meetings. There the unanimous approval of even the most potentially unpopular decisions is the norm.
A worker who asks a critical questin or abstains on the vote (a vote against would be very unusual indeed) would be browbeaten, victimised, blacklisted and may well end up outside the plant.
The bureaucrats argue that the union would be embarassed if views contrary to its policy were voiced at one of its meetings. (In reality, of course, that is views contrary to management policy).
The direct ideological control of the workers is horrific. Once a week the 'shop steward' or rep has to make out an ideological report on the 10 or so members he (there are no women production workers, of course, in Nissan plants) represents.
The report has to include: who is complaining about anything? Who has caused any trouble? Questions must be asked of the workers: what do you think of the new Prime Minister? What do you think of various critics of the government?
Workers are asked what they do in their spare time or what they did at the weekend, which intimidates workers against involvement in any kind of left wing or militant activity.
These reports when they are compiled are sent to a secret sub-committee, discreetly called the 'intelligence sub-committee'. From there they are sent to the union President and the Federation.
From this the obvious intimidation arises. Workers are told not to speak to militants and so on.
It is a great tribute to the small number of militant activists in Nissan that they continue to struggle under these conditions.
The workers I spoke to were organised with activists outside the plant who could distribute leaflets for them and stood a candidate for shop steward in the 1981 elections for shop stewards. They intend to do the same at the next elections.
We should salute that struggle, and the struggles of other militant activists in Japan, and wish them success.
A stop-press box printed with the article read:
As we go to press, we hear that Yoshiji Azuma and fellow dissident Masao Kayama have been endorsed by the Nissan Union to run for the next elections in August 1983. This abrupt and unexpected switch of position by the leadership appears to flow from the decision of the management to scrap some of the formal consultations with the union. In retaliation the Nissan Union last October announced its withdrawal from the P3 movement as Union Chairman Shioji Ichiro manoeuvres to restore his close working relationship with Nissan President Ishihara Takushi.