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Japanese Labor in World War II

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Richard Rice
Affiliation:
University of Tennessee, Chattanooga

Extract

Apart from the intrinsic value of understanding the fate of Japanese workers during the war, Japanese labor history in World War II also gives us a non-Western point of comparison for studies of wartime labor in the West. To facilitate that comparison, we should consider government policy, the response of the labor movement, and the conditions of workers during the war. In Japan, labor and economic history periodization of World War II does not conform to the European and American conceptions. For the Japanese, the war began with the outbreak of the “China incident” in 1937; Pearl Harbor, traumatic as it was for the United States, only marks the beginning of a new stage the Japanese call the “Pacific War.” It is not surprising, then, that Japanese labor history begins its wartime phase in 1937. In fact, to comprehend changes during the 1937–45 war, at least brief mention must be made of earlier developments.

Type
The Working Class in World War II
Copyright
Copyright © International Labor and Working-Class History, Inc. 1990

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References

NOTES

1. Kazuo, Ōkōchi, Kurai tanima no rōdō undōō (Tokyo, 1970)Google Scholar, uses the “valley of darkness” imagery in his title and argument to stress the real deprivation workers faced under wartime controls.

2. Gordon, Andrew, The Evolution of Labor Relations in Japan: Heavy Industry, 1853–1955 (Cambridge, 1985), 329CrossRefGoogle Scholar, argues that the prewar and wartime expectations had a postwar “reconstitution” in the labor-management balance that emerged by the 1950s.

3. Large, Stephen S., Organized Workers and Socialist Politics in Interwar Japan (Cambridge, 1981), 230Google Scholar, argues that new aspects of industrial paternalism were developed during the war, and the government-sponsored Sanpō movement (discussed below) provided valuable organizational experience. Garon, Sheldon, The State and Labor in Modern Japan (Berkeley, 1987) 229–37.Google ScholarNotar, Ernest J., “Japan's Wartime Labor Policy: A Search for Method,” Journal of Asian Studies, 44 (02 1985), 326CrossRefGoogle Scholar, makes the strongest case for looking at the legacy of wartime labor issues, whose “imprint on Japan today is unmistakable.” Johnson, Chalmers, MITI and the Japanese Miracle: The Growth of Industrial Policy, 1925–1975 (Stanford, 1982)Google Scholar traces the history of the economic bureaucracy in Japan, showing its continuity from the late 1920s to 1970s.

4. Large, , Organized Workers, 24.Google Scholar His book focuses principally on the Ninon Rōdō Sōdōmei (Japan General Federation of Labor), the only labor organization to span the entire interwar period.

5. Garon, , State and Labor, 212–14.Google Scholar Iwao had been chief labor manager at Japan Electric, and he became a protege of Yoshida Shigeru in the early 1930s. At Yoshida's request, he joined the Social Bureau in 1935 where his ideas of harmony led to the Sanpō movement (see below).

6. Taira, Koji, Economic Development and the Labor Market in Japan (New York, 1970), 145Google Scholar, table 16, shows a wide range of unionization by industry.

7. Ibid., 146; Garon, , State and Labor, 191.Google Scholar

8. Fletcher, William Miles III, in his prewar intellectual history, The Search for a New Order: Intellectuals and Fascism in Prewar Japan (Chapel Hill, 1982), 9Google Scholar, has a brief description of the rise of unions in World War I and their influence on leading intellectuals seeking a new social order for Japan.

9. Gordon, , Evolution of Labor, 258.Google Scholar

10. Large, , Organized Workers, 226.Google Scholar Along with other forms of international cooperation, Japan also broke away from the International Labor Organization in 1938: Ayusawa, Iwao F., A History of Labor in Modern Japan (Honolulu, 1966), 226.Google Scholar

11. Gordon, , Evolution of Labor, 264.Google Scholar

12. Cohen, Jerome B., Japan's Economy in War and Reconstruction (Minneapolis, 1949), 334–35; 337–40.Google Scholar This now classic study is still the most complete economic history of the war in Japan. Chapter Five, “Mobilizing Manpower,” deals with the work force. See also Gordon, , Evolution of Labor, 272.Google Scholar

13. Garon, , State and Labor, 225.Google Scholar

14. Cohen, , Japan's Economy, 271–72.Google Scholar

15. Hitachi Seisakushōshi, 2: 3031.Google Scholar This official company history has no single author.

16. Tsūshō sangyōshō jūkōgyō kyokuhen, Nihon no kikai kogyo—sono seichō to kōzō (Tokyo, 1960), 55.Google Scholar

17. Cohen, , Japan's Economy, 272.Google Scholar

18. Ibid., 281.

19. Tsūshō sangyōshōhen, Sangyō tōsei (Tokyo, 1964), 592Google Scholar; Bōeichō bōeikenshūjō senshishitsu, Rikugun gunju dōin (Tokyo, 1970), 2: 830–3.Google Scholar A translation of the Munitions Ministry legislation is in Saburo, Hayashi and Coox, Alvin D., Kogun: The Japanese Army in the Pacific War (Quantico, 1959), chap. 10, note 1.Google Scholar Surprisingly, until November 1943, the army and navy each produced aircraft independently and competed for scarce materials and workers.

20. Tsūshō, Sangyō tōsei, 545; 594–97.Google Scholar For example, oil stocks declined from 7,677,000 barrels in late 1942 to 3,512,000 in 1943, and only 490,000 were available in late 1944. Access to oil in Indonesia was one of the reasons for the attack on Pearl Harbor.

21. Cohen, , Japan's Economy, 274.Google Scholar

22. Gordon, , Evolution of Labor, 262.Google Scholar

23. Cohen, , Japan's Economy, 282.Google Scholar Until the setback at Guadalcanal, the Japanese did not take mobilization as seriously as did Britain and the United States, but neither did Germany attempt full mobilization until the defeat at Stalingrad.

24. Lockwood, William, The Economic Development of Japan (Princeton, 1968), 184, note 54.Google Scholar

25. Taira, , Economic Development, 145.Google Scholar

26. Garon, , State and Labor, 193.Google Scholar

27. Ōkōchi, , Kurai tanima, 215.Google Scholar

28. Levine, Solomon B., Industrial Relations in Postwar Japan (Urbana, III., 1958), 67, table 5.Google Scholar

29. Gordon, , Evolution of Labor, 333.Google Scholar

30. Garon, , State and Labor, 192–93Google Scholar, succinctly traces the emergence of ultrarightist unions. The Kyōchōkai began in December 1919 as a quasi-governmental body to promote industrial harmony: Garon, , State and Labor, 5153.Google Scholar

31. Ibid., 211.

32. Ibid., 209.

33. Ibid., 211–12.

34. Ibid., 217.

35. Gordon, , Evolution of Labor, 261–62.Google Scholar

36. Ibid., 263; Notar, , “Japan's Wartime Labor,” 312Google Scholar, and Large, , Organized Workers, 30Google Scholar, also support this argument.

37. Cohen, , Japan's Economy, 282–86Google Scholar; Scalapino, Robert A., Democracy and the Party Movement in Prewar Japan (Berkeley, 1953), 116Google Scholar; Okochi, Kazuo, Karsh, Bernard, and Levine, Solomon B., eds., Workers and Employers in Japan: The Japanese Employment Relations System (Princeton, 1974), 496.Google Scholar A popular textbook, Fairbank, John K., Reischauer, Edwin O., and Craig, Albert, East Asia: The Modern Transformation (Boston, 1965), 605Google Scholar, suggests mobilization was “sufficiently rigorous by 1941 to be called totalitarian.” So it was in intent, if not in practice.

38. Notar, , “Japan's Wartime Labor,” 312.Google Scholar He weakens his own argument by admitting that the Sanpō's positive aspects were soon victims of ideology and the need for economic controls. Ayusawa, , History of Labor, 230–31Google Scholar, recognized early on the progressive aspects of wartime labor law.

39. Ibid., 314. Ironically, as noted above, during the Pacific War the army refused Welfare Ministry inspectors access to its own munitions plants.

40. Ibid., 317, 319. For another view of the reluctance of businessmen to give up their prerogatives, even in wartime, see Rice, Richard, “Economic Mobilization in Wartime Japan: Business, Bureaucracy, and Military in Conflict,” Journal of Asian Studies, 38 (08, 1979), 689706.CrossRefGoogle Scholar As Large, , Organized Workers, 212Google Scholar, notes, neither business nor organized labor could openly oppose Sanpō because of their political weakness and their professed patriotism supporting mobilization after the outbreak of war in China.

41. Notar, , “Japan's Wartime Labor,” 322.Google Scholar

42. Ibid., 323–25.

43. Garon, , State and Labor, 226.Google Scholar

44. Ibid., 203–5. In an article on the postwar survival of the “social bureaucrats” and their policies, Garon sees 1938 as an important turning point: “the strengthened social bureaucrats no longer concerned themselves with protecting the rights of organized labor; they concentrated instead on strike prevention, wage controls, labor allocation, and other measures related to military-industrial mobilization.” Garon, Sheldon, “The Imperial Bureaucracy and Labor Policy in Postwar Japan,” Journal of Asian Studies, 43 (05 1984): 442.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

45. Garon, , State and Labor, 221.Google Scholar

46. Rice, , “Economic Mobilization,” 696.Google Scholar

47. Cohen, , Japan's Economy, 28.Google Scholar

48. Gordon, , Evolution of Labor, 319.Google Scholar

49. Ibid., 320–26. In extreme cases, according to Ōkōchi, , Kurai tanima, 219Google Scholar, absenteeism reached 40 and even 50 percent.

50. Adapted from Table 25, Ibid., 322. I do not include the “near disputes” reported by the police in 1943 and 1944: 412 and 200, respectively.

51. Garon, , State and Labor, 225.Google Scholar

52. Genzō, Hazama, Nihon shihonshugi hattatsushi ron (Tokyo, 1968), 317, chart 23.Google Scholar

53. Havens, Thomas R., Valley of Darkness: The Japanese People and World War Two (New York, 1978), 93Google Scholar; Cohen, , Japan's Economy, 97.Google Scholar Only China faced greater inflation.

54. Tsūshō, , Sangyō tōsei, 590.Google Scholar American figures are based on consumer prices; English and German figures are cost of living. 1944 figure is in the average from January to November.

55. Hitachi seisakushōshi, 2: 4445.Google Scholar

56. Nakamura, Takafusa, Economic Growth in Prewar Japan (New Haven, 1983), 292.Google Scholar

57. Havens, , Valley of Darkness, 94.Google Scholar

58. Ibid., 95.

59. Cohen, , Japan's Economy, 406–10Google Scholar; Havens, Thomas R., “Women and War in Japan, 1937–45,” American Historical Review 80 (10 1975): 924.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

60. Havens, , Valley of Darkness, 104–6Google Scholar; Cohen, , Japan's Economy, 324–26.Google Scholar

61. Havens, , “Women,” 920.Google Scholar

62. Ibid., 918.

63. Cohen, , Japan's Economy, 288, table 33.Google Scholar

64. Havens, , “Women,” 922.Google Scholar

65. Havens, , Valley of Darkness, 107.Google Scholar

66. Cohen, , Japan's Economy, 292, note 43.Google Scholar

67. Havens, , “Women,” 925.Google Scholar