The Evolution of Enterprise Unionism in Japan: A Socio‐Political Perspective
| Author | Ruth V. Aguilera,Dae Yong Jeong |
| Published date | 01 March 2008 |
| Date | 01 March 2008 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8543.2007.00668.x |
The Evolution of Enterprise Unionism in
Japan: A Socio-Political Perspective
Dae Yong Jeong and Ruth V. Aguilera
Abstract
This article proposes an alternative framework for understanding enterprise
unionism by emphasizing political dynamics and the role of the state in labour
relations. Our framework delineates the strategic behaviour patterns of each of
the tripartite IR actors under collective bargaining. It maintains that the initial
period of the collective bargaining era constituted a critical juncture for state
labour policy that occurred in distinctive ways in different countries and that
these differences played a central role in shaping the different union structures
in the following decades. Our historical analysis shows that unlike its Western
counterparts, the Japanese state was able to eradicate the horizontal union
movement at the onset of the collective bargaining era because of its advantages
as a late developer and Cold War politics, which resulted in enterprise unionism
in Japan.
1. Introduction
In Japan, enterprise unions account for more than 90 per cent of all unions
and organized workers (Japan Institute for Labor Policy and Training 2004).
Since 1950, when the term, ‘kigyobetsu kumiai’ (enterprise union) was coined
by the Social Science Research Institute at the University of Tokyo
(SSRIUT), a great deal of research has been undertaken to understand why
Japanese workers organize themselves by enterprise in contrast to their coun-
terparts in Western countries. However, as Jeong and Lawler (2007) discuss,
the two main hypotheses (the cultural and internal labour market hypoth-
eses) rest on weak grounds both conceptually and empirically. The most
critical and common errors in these perspectives have been (1) the erroneous
assumption that the established union structure is the manifestation of the
nature of Japanese workers, and (2) the exclusion of the state from analysis.
In this article, we propose an alternative theoretical framework of
enterprise unionism from a socio-political perspective against the popular
Dae Yong Jeong and Ruth V. Aguilera are at the University of Illinois.
British Journal of Industrial Relations doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8543.2007.00668.x
46:1 March 2008 0007–1080 pp. 98–132
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2008. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd,
9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
hypotheses. We emphasize political dynamics and the role of the state in labour
relations, as in the end the political context has as much influence upon the
consciousness and institutions of the working class as the economic context
(Thompson 1963). Our framework applies the thesis of ‘critical junctures’
(Collier and Collier 1991; Lipset and Rokkan 1967) to the evolution of union
systems in different countries. (‘Critical junctures’ can be thought of as major
watersheds in political life, which establish certain directions of change and
foreclose others in a way that shapes politics for years to come.) We argue that
the initial period of the collective bargaining era constituted a critical juncture
for state labour policy that occurred in distinctive ways in different countries
and that in turn these differences played a central role in shaping the different
union structures in the following decades, amid the sharp contrast between the
unionist’s desired union structure and that of the employer.
As Johnson (1995) remarks, ‘the most important issue for the [develop-
mental] elites is to depoliticize the labour movement’ (p. 49). In Japan, the
depoliticization of the labour movement meant denying horizontal unionism,
which was in alignment with management’s interests. Unlike its Western
counterparts, the Japanese state was capable of eradicating the horizontal
union movement at the onset of the collective bargaining era because of its
late-developer advantages as well as Cold War politics, resulting in an enter-
prise union system in Japan. In other words, enterprise unionism in Japan is
mainly the result of labour’s failure to institutionalize horizontal unions.
We believe that our proposed framework is timely because the emergence
of enterprise unions in other Asian economies over the past decades has
broadened the scope of enterprise union studies while magnifying their sig-
nificance (Frenkel 1993; Jeong and Lawler 2007). A better understanding of
the Japanese case will also aid in studying other similar cases where enterprise
unionism has flourished. In addition, our framework will also be helpful in
understanding the decentralization of collective bargaining that has been
undertaken in many Western countries since the 1980s. We show how our
framework can be applied to understand bargaining decentralization in
Western countries in this article, although our discussion of this process will
be brief because of space constraints.
This article consists of three parts. In the first part, we propose a theoreti-
cal framework, which emphasizes political dynamics and the role of the state
in labour relations. We first describe strategic behavioural patterns of each of
the tripartite actors (unionists, employers, and the state) under collective
bargaining. In particular, we discuss the model in which the state seeks to
decentralize the union movement, shifting the locus of power towards man-
agement in determining union structure. We then suggest factors that signifi-
cantly alter the capacity and legitimacy of the state to define labour policy
and detail the unique conditions found at the critical juncture in postwar
Japan.
In the second part, we conduct a historical analysis of the union move-
ment in Japan to test the validity of our proposed framework. Its sections
are presented in chronological order. The first section investigates the
Evolution of Enterprise Unionism 99
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2008.
characteristics of early industrial workers and their organizations from the
late nineteenth century until the first decade of the twentieth century, and
point out the significant role of the state in preventing the development of
horizontal labour unionism, particularly craft unionism. The second section
illustrates the characteristics of the prewar union movement, and examines
what ‘paternalistic’ managerial practices meant to both management and
workers in prewar Japan. Despite management opposition and state suppres-
sion, we show that prewar Japanese unionists embraced horizontal unionism.
In fact, almost all prewar unions were horizontal unions. The third section
discusses the implications of state labour policy during the war period for the
direction of the postwar union movement, emphasizing the impact of the
prohibition of labour unionism and of workers’ experience in running work-
place units. The fourth section shows that Japanese workers embraced indus-
trial unionism in the postwar period and explains why they formed mixed
unions of blue- and white-collar workers at the plant level. The final section
examines the critical juncture at which the state and management eradicated
industrial unionism and an enterprise union system was institutionalized.
In the last part, based on our framework, we explain why enterprise
unionism did not emerge in Western countries and test the validity of our
framework with three major Western countries (i.e. the United Kingdom,
Germany and the United States). We then go further to apply our framework
to account for the decentralization of collective bargaining that has taken
place in these countries (to a limited extent in Germany) since the 1980s.
2. A socio-political framework for enterprise unionism
Structural differences between early labour unions were largely due to their
varying abilities to impose upon their members the rigorous discipline
without which unilateral regulation could not succeed (e.g. apprenticeship by
craft unions). Collective bargaining, however, suits any union structure, and
recognition by employers and the state for the purpose of bargaining stabi-
lizes and legitimizes existing union structures (Clegg 1976). Therefore, under
collective bargaining, the claim of the union to represent its members no
longer rests on its own strength alone. Rather, the underlying position of the
union becomes essentially defensive. Collective bargaining thus brings with it
intensified tension, conflict and struggle among the tripartite actors, as each
of them attempts to institutionalize a type of union structure that will maxi-
mize its own benefit. This is why the locus of power — politics — among the
tripartite actors at the onset of the collective bargaining era is critical in
determining the dominance of a certain type of union structure in the fol-
lowing decades and why we propose a socio-political framework to explain
the dominance of enterprise unions in Japan.
In the following pages, we describe the strategic behaviour of each of the
tripartite actors under collective bargaining and discuss the model in which
the state seeks to decentralize the union movement, which shifts the locus of
100 British Journal of Industrial Relations
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2008.
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