Struggle and Purpose in Postwar Japanese Unionism
Gibbs, Michael H.
Japan Research Monograph 14
2000. 322 pp.
ISBN 1-55729-066-0
$20.00
Status, purpose, and lineage are the themes of this study of the postwar Japanese labor movement. The study stretches from 1943 to 1984. During that time, Japan went from being a vast empire to a defeated, occupied, and outcast nation. Social transformation lowered the barriers of status and class, and economic restructuring reoriented industry from wartime to peaceful production.
Unionists ensured their eligibility for participation in the national political discourse of the 1950s and 1960s by demonstrating their sense of high purpose in the debates of the late 1940s. Men and women from a much broader segment of society than ever before participated in the postwar struggle to define a new purpose for Japanese politics. This study looks at individual behavior motivated by this search for high purpose and examines a variety of cases, differing by status, age, and experience.
Reviews
"This book vividly recreates the intense passions of labor organizing and activism in the iron and steel industry in the first twenty years after World War II. Along the way, it offers considerable insight into the dynamics of labor struggles and their outcomes."
—Andrew Gordon, The Journal of Asian Studies 62, no. 1 (2003)
Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3096196
"Gibbs's study…pays attention to the sense of purpose held by union activists and managers, and examines how struggles among actors with different senses of purpose influenced the development of labor relations in the steel firms. Another contribution of this book is that it gives a detailed account of two issues that have tended to be overlooked in previous studies of Japanese labor relations, especially in English language publications: the influence of wartime experiences of workers on their subsequent commitment to union activities, and the active role of white-collar staff in the labor movement in the early postwar days."
—Akira Suzuki, The Journal of Asian Studies 60, no. 4 (2001)
Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2700063