The Human Face Of Industrial Conflict In Post-War Japan

First Published in 1998. This volume first appeared in Japanese as Sengo Nihon no Sõgi to Ningen (1986). Published by Nihon Hyõronsha in Tokyo it included the reflections of nine union leaders who had taken their unions through some of Japan's most important post-war industrial disputes. In 1983 each of the leaders came to a student seminar at Chiba University near Tokyo. The talks were recorded and then transcribed with two aims in mind. One was to provide information on the events which led to the formation of Japan's industrial relations as we know them today. During the 1950s and early 1960s a number of Japan's key labour unions lost a succession of campaigns to establish and to defend what they saw as the natural rights of their members. Many of the unions experienced schisms, and the end result was a fundamental shift in the balance of power between labour and management.

Hirosuke Kawanishi

1 Theoretical and Historical Introduction 2 The Yomiuri Labour Disputes, 1945-6 3 The Labour Conflicts of Tõhõ Motion Pictures, 1946-50 4 The Five Labour Conflicts of Toshiba 1946-1949 5 The Planned General Strike of 1 February 1947 and the Fight Against the Law on Personnel Levels in the Public Sector of Kokurõ, 1949 6 The Labour Conflict of the Omi-Kenshi Silk Mills, 1954 7 The Labour Conflicts of the Mitsui-Miike Coal Mines, 1959-60 8 The Labour Conflicts of the All-Japan Seamen's Union, up to 1972