An Introduction to Japanese Trade Unionism

An Introduction to Japanese Trade Unionism
Author: Alice Hanson Cook
Publisher: ILR Press
Total Pages: 232
Release: 1965-12-31
Genre: Labor-unions
ISBN:

Japan. Similarities and differences between trade unions. Political aspect. Seasonal workers, wage payment system (the woman worker and the young worker), labour legislation. Membership, decision making, unions in private enterprises and public enterprises, welfare, collective bargaining, labour disputes, grievances, strikes. Administrative aspects. Political leadership and political parties. Relations with government. Labour force, technological change.

The Economic Effects of Trade Unions in Japan

The Economic Effects of Trade Unions in Japan
Author: T. Tachibanaki
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 215
Release: 2000-09-05
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0333983807

The book attempts to examine whether trade unions in Japan contributed to raising wages, productivity and firm's performance. In the western world trade unions are often regarded as organizations which prevent firms from performing well. The Japanese case may be different from Europe and North America. The book investigates who in Japan joins trade unions and asks whether there is any difference in the satisfaction level of employees, the wage level, and labour turnover rates between union members and non-union members?

Coping with the Miracle

Coping with the Miracle
Author: Hugh Williamson
Publisher: Pluto Press (UK)
Total Pages: 360
Release: 1994
Genre: International labor activities
ISBN:

Examines the international activities of Japanese trade unions. Includes history of the Japanese labour movement and significant union organizations since 1945, international activities of private and public sector unions, the extent to which unions attempt to influence Japanese transnational companies in their foreign operations, labour diplomacy of the Japanese government, and the activities of the Japanese International Labour Federation.

Disparaged Success

Disparaged Success
Author: Ikuo Kume
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2018-09-05
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 150173184X

Japanese scholars have begun to challenge conventional wisdom about effective labor organizing, and Ikuo Kume has written the first book in English to advance their controversial theory. Since at least the early 1980s, the power of organized labor has weakened in most advanced industrial countries. The decline of organized labor has coincided with the decentralization of labor-management relations. As a result, most observers assume that decentralized labor is destined to lose power in a capitalist economy, and that enterprise unions will tend to be docile and powerless. Kume documents the one notable exception. The Japanese trade union confederation has steadily grown in importance, expanding its scope beyond individual companies to national policy making. Kume traces the achievements of enterprise unionism in private firms. Labor, he argues, slowly gained legitimate corporate membership by establishing joint institutions with management. By the 1960s, labor-management councils, stimulated by foreign competition, had become a widespread feature of Japanese industry. Soon unions were regular participants in the government deliberation councils and in the information exchange that shaped policy when inflation hit the Japanese economy. The unions had become a full partner by the 1980s and were crucially involved in the 1993 defeat of the Liberal Democratic Party after thirty-eight years of rule.

Industrial Relations System in Japan

Industrial Relations System in Japan
Author: Yasuo Kuwahara
Publisher:
Total Pages: 40
Release: 1989
Genre: Industrial relations
ISBN:

Opinions about industrial relations (IR) in Japan are extremely diversified. The main concern regarding IR appears to be whether Japan can maintain the vitality and flexibility to cope with the changes in the industrial structure and technology in a stagnant world economy. The lack of opposition and dispute between labor and management may be the most important feature for summarizing labor-management relations in modern Japan when making international comparisons. Hypotheses for understanding Japanese IR have been postulated in regard to the following: unintended consequences, homogeneous structure, business community of management and labor, global competition and the needs for flexibility, adaptability in competitive markets, and transformation of the paradigm of IR. The historical development of labor relations in Japan shows a spirit of cooperation. By any measurement of cooperation, labor-management cooperation is strongest in Japan. A special feature of the corporate structure is management's role as referee between the employees and the stockholders. Other features include a continuous path of promotion, firm-specific training, built-in wage-profit system, and transit members of unions. A typical system for mutual communication is the "labor-management consultation system." In the future, unions must minimize adverse effects of competition among rival companies, individualization, and fragmentation of IR. (Appendixes include 25 references and a chronological table of IR in Japan.) (YLB)

Teachers' Unions and the Politics of Education in Japan

Teachers' Unions and the Politics of Education in Japan
Author: Robert W. Aspinall
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2001-08-09
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 079149022X

Providing an overview of the history of postwar teachers' unions in Japan, this book analyses the causes and effects of the 1989 schism of the largest union, the Japan Teachers' Union (Nikkyoso). Formed in 1947 during a period of great change for both the Japanese educational and political systems, this union has been closely linked with developments in both of these areas. The 1989 schism occurred at the start of another period of great change for politics and education. Author Robert W. Aspinall uses several theoretical models to discuss the schism and then offers modifications of the theoretical models to account for political changes that have occurred since they were created. He also places the fortunes of the union in the wider context of Japanese unionism and party politics, examines the role of teachers' unions at all levels of the education hierarchy, and describes the role of unions in the current wave of educational reform.

Our Unions, Our Selves

Our Unions, Our Selves
Author: Anne Zacharias-Walsh
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 237
Release: 2016-08-03
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1501706896

In Our Unions, Our Selves, Anne Zacharias-Walsh provides an in-depth look at the rise of women-only unions in Japan, an organizational analysis of the challenges these new unions face in practice, and a firsthand account of the ambitious, occasionally contentious, and ultimately successful international solidarity project that helped to spark a new feminist labor movement.In the early 1990s, as part of a larger wave of union reform efforts in Japan, women began creating their own women-only labor unions to confront long-standing gender inequality in the workplace and in traditional enterprise unions. These new unions soon discovered that the demand for individual assistance and help at the bargaining table dramatically exceeded the rate at which the unions could recruit and train members to meet that demand. Within just a few years, women-only unions were proving to be both the most effective option women had for addressing problems on the job and in serious danger of dying out because of their inability to grow their organizational capacity.Zacharias-Walsh met up with Japanese women's unions at a critical moment in their struggle to survive. Recognizing the benefits of a cross-national dialogue, they teamed up to host a multiyear international exchange project that brought together U.S. and Japanese activists and scholars to investigate the links between organizational structure and the day-to-day problems nontraditional unions face, and to develop Japan-specific participatory labor education as a way to organize and empower new generations of members. They also gained valuable insights into the fine art of building and maintaining the kinds of collaborative, cross border relationships that are essential to today’s social justice movements, from global efforts to save the environment to the Fight for $15 and Black Lives Matter.

Trade Unions and Politics

Trade Unions and Politics
Author: Andrew Taylor
Publisher:
Total Pages: 264
Release: 1989
Genre: Political Science
ISBN:

Drawing on a comparison of the political role of Labour in the United States, Britain, Germany, Sweden and Japan, Andrew Taylor provides an introduction to, and a contribution to our understanding of, the politics of trade unions.