Labor unions in Japan

[4] Until 1945, however, the labour movement remained weak, impeded by a lack of legal rights,[5] anti-union legislation,[4] management-organized factory councils, and political divisions between “cooperative” and radical unionists.

Occupation authorities initially encouraged the formation of independent unions, but reversed course as part of broader anti-Communist measures.

In the first half of the Meiji period (1868–1912), most labour disputes occurred in the mining and textile industries and took the form of small-scale strikes and spontaneous riots.

The second half of the period witnessed rapid industrialization, the development of a capitalist economy, and the transformation of many feudal workers to wage labour.

[4] In February 1898, engineers and stokers at the Japan Railway Company successfully struck for improvement of status and higher wages.

[4] 1907 saw the greatest number of disputes in a decade, with large-scale riots at Japan's two leading copper mines, Ashio and Besshi, which were only suppressed by the use of troops.

[17] Hampered by their weak legal status, the absence of a right to bargain collectively with employers,[5] and the setting up of management-organized factory councils, over 800 unions[18] had succeeded in organizing only 7.9% of the labour force by 1931.

One action was to ensure the creation of a Trade Union Law to allow for the first time workers to organize, strike, and bargain collectively, which was passed by the Diet of Japan on 22 December 1945.

[23] By 1960, Japan's labor unions were at the height of their power, and served as the backbone of the massive 1960 Anpo protests against revision of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty.

[25] Until the mid-1980s, Japan's 74,500 trade unions were represented by four main labor federations: the General Council of Trade Unions of Japan (日本労働組合総評議会 nihon rōdō kumiai sōhyōgikai, commonly known as Sōhyō), with 4.4 million members—a substantial percentage representing public sector employees; the Japan Confederation of Labour (zen nihon rodo sodomei, commonly known as Dōmei), with 2.2 million members; the Association of Neutral Labour Unions (ja:中立労連 Chūritsu Rōren), with 1.6 million members; and the National Federation of Industrial Organizations (ja:新産別 Shinsanbetsu), with only 61,000 members.

During prosperous times, the spring labor offensives are highly ritualized affairs, with banners, sloganeering, and dances aimed more at being a show of force than a crippling job action.

The number of working days lost to labor disputes peaked in the economic turmoil of 1974 and 1975 at around 9 million workdays in the two-year period.

During the 1980s, workers received pay hikes that on average closely reflected the real growth of GNP for the preceding year.