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WORK FORCE

According to the “Labor Force Survey” for 1971 from the Bureau of Statistics in the Prime Minister’s Office, 52.8 million persons — 32.2 million men and 20.6 million women — were employed in Japan, totalling almost half the population. Only about one percent of the work force, fewer than 600,000 people, were unemployed, giving Japan one of the lowest unemployment rates in the world. In comparison, America has about 80 million working out of a population of about 209 million. The unemployed number between five and six million, about 6 percent of the labor force.

The primary sector of the Japanese economy consisting of agriculture, forestry, and fishing employs 19 percent of the work force, some 9 million people. The secondary sector of mining, manufacturing, and construction employs 34 percent, about 18 million people. The tertiary sector of sales, services, and transportation employs 47 percent of the work force, about 25 million workers. A little over 6 million people are self-employed, and 3.5 million are unpaid family workers.

The Japanese people, especially farmers and workers in small companies and businesses, work long hours. Many Japanese work as many as 70 hours per week. It is only in the unionized, industrial sector and in large companies that fewer hours are worked. According to a survey of 5,000 private companies conducted by the Ministry of Labor, only 10 percent of them are on a five-day week, while 59 percent of them are on a six-day week. Employees of big business fare better. About one-fourth of companies having more than 1,000 employees are on a five-day week, and in 35 percent of these companies, employees had annual vacations of from fifteen to nineteen days. About one-fifth of these employees received more than twenty days vacation.

The pioneer labor organization in Japanese history was the Doshikwai, the Community of Sentiment Society, established by printers in 1890. A similar organization was established by railway employees in 1898, and the Yuaikwai, the Laborers’ Friendly Society, in 1912. The latter group had 50,000 members.

The first serious labor unrest in Japan occurred during the First World War when the cost of living, especially the cost of rice, rose higher than wages. Just before the Armistice, riots occurred in Tokyo, Osaka, and Kobe in which rice warehouses and other property of supposed rice hoarders were burned. After the war trade unionism grew, but never flourished. The moderate, middle-of-the-road Yuaikwai continued to attract the largest membership among Japanese labor groups, and changed its name to the Japan Federation of Labor, Nihon Rodo Sodomei. However, with the tightening of police supervision of all suspected organizations during the 1930’s, the organization was suppressed and its leader jailed. By 1938, there were 731 trade unions in Japan, but their membership was only 375,000 workers, only 5.5 percent of the labor force.

With the end of Japanese militarism and the coming of the American Occupation, trade unionism along American lines was established and guaranteed by the new Japanese Constitution. When the Pacific War ended, there were no labor unions in Japan. By the end of the first year of the American Occupation there were twelve thousand of them with 3.7 million members. Coupled to the desire of Occupation Officials for the re-establishment of the Japanese labor movement, was the very active organizational work performed by Japanese Communist leaders and the Japanese Communist Party.

However, the first post-war general strike-threat of six million unionists scheduled for February 1, 1947 was forbidden by the personal order of General MacArthur. Here, the labor movement lost its initial momentum and its reawakened optimism. Since there were only about thirty thousand Japanese police to oppose them, the unionists might have been able to wage a successful strike. But they could not oppose the American Occupation Forces. In 1948 General MacArthur removed the right of collective bargaining from the Japan Council of National and Local Government Workers’ Unions, whose membership encompassed 40 percent of Japanese organized labor. Soon afterwards, with the development of the Cold War, Occupation policies turned anti-communist and a red purge in 1950 eliminated some fourteen thousand Communists and “radicals” from government, labor, key industries, and the newspapers. Since then, the labor unions have existed somewhat comfortably within the Japanese industrial progress.

Presently, Japan has 11.8 million workers, over 20 percent of the labor force, organized in hundreds of unions. In comparison, the United States has 19 million organized workers, almost 25 percent of the labor force. The Japanese unions are primarily company-centered industrial unions affiliated with other unions in larger labor organizations. The Sohyo, the General Council of Japanese Trade Unions, is the largest of these labor organizations, and its 4.3 million members account for about 37 percent of all organized workers. A large proportion of its membership is drawn from government and public corporation fields, and although the Sohyo is affiliated with the Japan Socialist Party and seeks to be politically active, its rank-and-file members are mainly concerned with economic gains, and are becoming less interested in political activity.

The Sohyo’s rival, Domei, the Japan Confederation of Labor, has 2.1 million members, 18 percent of organized workers. Domei supports the Democratic Socialist Party. The Churitsuroren, the Federation of Independent Unions, has 1.4 million members, 12 percent of the total. The smallest of the four national organizations is the Shinsanbetsu, the National Federation of Industrial Organizations, with 76,000 members, 0.6 percent of unionized workers. Not affiliated with the larger organizations are a surprising 4.1 million union members, fully a third of the total number of organized workers.

In Japan, strikes are generally brief, peaceful, and successful for the unions. Toyota, remarkably, has not had a strike in over ten years. However, not all labor-management problems are simply solved. In 1971, for example, two major railway unions were locked in struggle with the Japan National Railways, a government-owned monopoly. The railway was caught with a deficit estimated at $1.5 billion due to increased wages, low fares, and the need for equipment. The railway executives went on a “productivity” drive based on harder work, cooperation by labor, and sacrifice. But what resulted was illegal union “busting” practices and total alienation of labor. Most of the fifteen formal complaints filed by the two unions with the National Labor Relations Board involved bribery or threats to union members by management. Workers were told, the complaints alleged, to quit the private union and to join the pro-company union if they wanted preferential job treatment. Some workers were told that they would never get promoted unless they joined the company union.

The Labor Board ruled that five of the complaints were true, and was studying the rest. When one of the unions produced a tape recording of an executive conference stressing the need to break the labor laws cleverly, the President of the Japan National Railways made a public apology for the “regrettable, unfair labor practices” engaged in by his executives. However, company harassment of workers had resulted in eight attributable suicides by company employees.

Despite such an occurrence, labor in Japan is quite well-paid by indigenous standards, and the annual spring wage offensive by the unions — the shunto as it is called — always results in substantial wage increases.

In April of 1973 the two major unions of the Japan National Railways called off a massive 72-hour strike that had halted almost all of Japan’s public transportation. More than 24 million people had been deprived of normal transportation, and an estimated 320,000 employees had been forced to sleep in their offices in Tokyo. The unions originally demanded raises of $90 in their average monthly pay of $339, but accepted an average wage increase of $56 a month offered by a government advisory group.

Because much of Japanese production is still labor-intensive, there periodically occur labor shortages which put a brake on the growth of the GNP. In 1970-71 there was such a shortage. In 1969 there were 45 million teen-agers in Japan, but by 1971, due to late marriages and family planning, the number of them dropped to 24 million. Japanese businesses need low-paid beginners because in Japan, wages, and thus labor costs, are directly related to the age of the worker. Business and industry pay on seniority and not for individual talent or production. A beginning teen-age worker earns only about one-third of the average wage. In 1970, 200,000 junior high school graduates entered the work force, 18 percent fewer than the previous year. There were 1.1 million jobs for them; only 17 percent were filled. In the same year, 666,000 high school graduates entered the work force, but only 14 percent of the 4.7 million jobs waiting for them were filled.

Although the recession of 1970-72 and the “dollar shock” has caused many Japanese companies to curtail investment in capital goods and even to suspend the hiring of the 1972 graduates, Japan will need 2.5 million new workers a year until at least 1975. Consequently, although there is a decline of 29 percent in job opportunities, the 735,000 secondary school graduates of 1972 have an estimated 2.6 million jobs waiting for them, about three and a half jobs per applicant.

According to a Mitsubishi Bank forecast in the spring of 1973, the declining Japanese birth rate coupled to shorter working hours will be one of the largest factors acting in concert with the shortage of land and natural resources that would check the nation’s economic growth in the future.

Much of the Japanese economic success is due to the diligent dexterity of its female workers who assemble with care and precision the flood of Japanese cameras, watches, and electronic devices. About 40 percent of the Japanese work force consists of females.

In Tokyo it seems that the sidewalks are continually being repaired. The portable machinery used on these projects adds considerably to the noise pollution of the cities. However, there is still much hand labor done with pick, shovel, and hammer.