Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Plates
- List of Maps
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgements
- Glossary
- List of abbreviations
- Notes on translation and anonymity
- Map 1
- Map 2
- Introduction
- 1 Chikuho: A Short Description
- 2 The Chikuho Revivalists
- 3 Idegawa
- 4 A Short History of Coalmining: Chikuho in Context
- 5 The Picture Show Man
- 6 A Culture of Violence
- 7 H-san Mine: Violence and Repression
- 8 The Bathing Master
- 9 Labour Conflict: The Case of the K-san Union Action
- 10 D-san and the Students
- 11 Mizuno
- 12 The Y-san Disaster
- 13 Sono
- 14 Welfare
- 15 Welfare in Chikuho
- 16 A Yakuza Story
- Conclusion
- Bibliographical Essay
- Bibliography
- List of Informants
- Index
- Plate section
13 - Sono
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Plates
- List of Maps
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgements
- Glossary
- List of abbreviations
- Notes on translation and anonymity
- Map 1
- Map 2
- Introduction
- 1 Chikuho: A Short Description
- 2 The Chikuho Revivalists
- 3 Idegawa
- 4 A Short History of Coalmining: Chikuho in Context
- 5 The Picture Show Man
- 6 A Culture of Violence
- 7 H-san Mine: Violence and Repression
- 8 The Bathing Master
- 9 Labour Conflict: The Case of the K-san Union Action
- 10 D-san and the Students
- 11 Mizuno
- 12 The Y-san Disaster
- 13 Sono
- 14 Welfare
- 15 Welfare in Chikuho
- 16 A Yakuza Story
- Conclusion
- Bibliographical Essay
- Bibliography
- List of Informants
- Index
- Plate section
Summary
In 1964, Sono, one of the more powerful influences behind the success of the YWM, first came to Chikuho. His impressions of the region were very strong:
When I first came to the area and drove around the place, the strongest impression that I got was of a stratified society. At the top were the residences of the presidents of the coal companies, and spread out below were the company houses of the office workers. And below them on the plains were the houses of the miners. And below them, in the least convenient places, in houses that looked like they shouldn't have even been standing, were the workers in the subcontracting mines. The structure was easily understood just by looking at the height of the respective housing. It was a stratified society that you could see before your eyes.
As a Tokyo student activist involved in civil rights movements, Sono was passionately interested in attempting to alleviate the repression he perceived in the coalfields of Chikuho. He was influenced by reports from leftist activists of the M-san Miike disaster in the same year, which described how the victims' families were awarded almost no compensation following the accident. According to the reports, the company was not prepared to take responsibility for the accident, which killed more than 460 miners, nor were the authorities prepared to take action against the company on behalf of the victims' families. This situation seemed a classic case of the extremely disproportionate power of Japanese industries to exploit and abuse workers.
With this orientation, Sono was concerned that the miners were not able to represent themselves effectively.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Undermining the Japanese MiracleWork and Conflict in a Japanese Coal-mining Community, pp. 220 - 223Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1994