REFERENCES
- Levine, S. (1967) ‘Postwar Trade Unionism, Collective Bargaining and Japanese Social Structure’ in R.P. Dore (ed.) Aspects of Social Change in Modern Japan, Princeton, Princeton University Press.
- Shirai, T. (1983) Contemporary Industrial Relations in Japan, Madison, University of Wisconsin Press.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
- A Place to Begin: Suggested Readings on Japanese Industrial Relations
- This bibliography was compiled with the twin aims of presenting as many differing viewpoints as possible and of providing an introduction to the controversies in the field. Despite the presence of many revisionist works in this list, the reader should be aware that the great bulk of the material in English reflects the most conservative stream of scholarship and is therefore completely inadequate in representing the range and sophistication of the Japanese literature. This is unfortunate, but is a product of the instrumental view most Western scholars have adopted toward Japanese labour studies, that is the view that takes Japan's economic growth as its primary area of concern.
- Furthermore, the English language literature is extremely uneven, with many studies of labour markets and labour-management relations but very few on crucial topics like union development, labour history, disputes, workers’ jobs and lives and social structure. In particular, there is not an adequate survey of the postwar era. The lopsidedness of the literature means that as a practical matter the reader new to the field has little choice but to plunge in by tackling the latest works first. Reading backwards, so to speak, has at least the merit of introducing living controversies first, ones that can be easily related to what journalists are writing in newspapers and periodicals like The Sydney Morning Herald, The Bulletin, the Far Eastern Economic Review, and The Japan Times. It also makes it possible to grasp the arguments swirling through important but more specialized publications like the Japan Labor Bulletin, Rodo Joho: News from Militant Japanese Workers, AMPO: Japan-Asia Quarterly Review, and the Journal of Japanese Studies.
- Note: Japanese family names are italicized.
- Tokunaga Shigeyoshi and Bergmann, J. (eds.) (1984) Industrial Relations in Transition: The Cases of Japan and the Federal Republic of Germany, Tokyo, University of Tokyo Press.
- The introduction and the six chapters on Japan consider Japan's dual labour market, management strategies for rationalization of labour brought on by current economic changes, and the relationship of workers’ organizations to the enterprise. Though demanding in the sense of expecting some prior knowledge, these essays are still accessible enough to repay close reading. The writers represent the more critical stream of Japanese scholarship that has seldom been represented in the past.
- Kobayashi Ken'ichi, (1985) ‘Japanese-Style Labor-Management Relations and Employment and Industrial Relations in Small and Medim Enterprises’, Journal of International Economic Studies, 1, March, 53–71.
- This article is one of the few detailed considerations labour relations in small and medium enterprises. Very useful information on worker attitudes, though the article should be read in conjunction with other work for the necessary context.
- McCormack, G. and Sugimoto, Y. (eds.) (1986) Democracy in Contemporary Japan, Sydney, Hale & Iremonger.
- This book should be read in its entirety for its questioning of the conventional interpretation of Japanese society today. The two chapters on labour—‘Class Struggle in Postwar Japan’ by Muto Ichiyo and ‘The Reality of Enterprise Unionism’ by Kawanishi Hirosuke—give the reader a view from the left which is extremely critical of the Japanese employment system. They argue that it amounts to a system of labour control and that the enterprise union is subservient to management.
- Shirai Taishiro, (ed.) (1983) Contemporary Industrial Relations in Japan, Madison, University of Wisconsin Press.
- State of the art mainstream (i.e. conservative) scholarship, this collection of articles by scholars closely associated with the Japan Institute of Labour contains no real surprises except for the chapter by Tokunaga Shigeyoshi entitled ‘A Marxist Interpretation of Japanese Industrial Relations’ which surveys the postwar development of labour. Other interesting contributions are Kazuo Koike's chapter on internal labour markets in large firms in which he develops the theme of ‘white-collarization’ of the regular employees, Taishiro Shirai's glowing evaluation of enterprise unionism as the most beneficial organization possible for Japanese workers, Kazutoshi Koshiro's argument for the economic rationality of Japanese-style labour relations in his chapter on the development of collective bargaining, and Haruo Shimada's introductory and concluding chapters surveying the field. Essential reading both for the clarity with which it puts the mainstream case and for the detailed information on such specific topics as quality of working life, women in industry, and management policies for labour. The bibliography is excellent and ought to be consulted for further reading.
- Levine, S.B. (1982) ‘Japanese Industrial Relations: An External View’, in Yoshio Sugimoto, Haruo Shimada, and Levine, S.B., Industrial Relations in Japan, Melbourne, Japanese Studies Centre.
- All of the papers in this brief publication are useful, but Solomon Levine's thoughtful and stimulating reconsideration of the truisms in the field suggests a surprisingly broad area of agreement between Japanese practices and those in other advanced industrialized countries like the U.S.
- Muto Ichiyo, ‘Class Struggle in Postwar Japan: Its Past, Present, and Future’, AMPO: Japan-Asia Quarterly Review, 13, 4 (1981) 21–33; 14, 1 (1982) 16–21, 35; 14, 3 (1982) 19–27; and ‘Class Struggle on the Shopfloor—The Japanese Case (1945–84)’, AMPO 16,. 3 (1984) 38–49.
- This series of four articles presents a historical survey of the postwar Japanese labour movement written from the perspective of an activist outside the mainstream of academia. Virtually the only historical treatment of the postwar period, these articles cast a wide net and are essential reading.
- Littler, Craig R. (1982) The Development of the Labour Process in Capitalist Societies: A Comparative Study of the Transformation of Work Organization in Britain, Japan and the USA, London, Heinemann Education Books.
- Chapter Ten in this volume examines the transformation of work organization and of the regulation of labour in prewar Japan. The focus of attention is on the struggle of oyakata and management to control shopfloor activities as the logic of capitalism was absorbed by culturally Japanese work processes.
- Ono, Tsuneo; and Mouer, Ross. (1986) Labor Policy in Japan: A Survey of Issues in the ‘Eighties, Melbourne, Japanese Studies Centre.
- This short monograph gives the most comprehensive framework for understanding labour policy in contemporary Japan. It introduces major areas of labour policy and identifies the various forces which shape the formation of such policy.
- Japan Institute of Labour (1979) Japanese Industrial Relations Series 2: Labor Unions and Labor-Managment Relations, Tokyo, The Japan Institute of Labor. All of the volumes in this series are useful, but volume 2 is especially so as a concise and clearly written introduction to Japanese labour relations. Very interesting reading in conjunction with Muto to see just how far apart interpretations of the same events and institutions can be.
- Levine, S.B. and Koji Taira, (1980) ‘Interpreting Industrial Conflict: The Case of Japan’, in Benjamin Martin and Everett M. Kassalow, (eds.) Labor Relations in Advanced Industrial Societies: Issues and Problems, Washington, Carnegie Endowment for World Peace, 61–88.
- Levine and Taira make a strong case that Japanese labour relations are not all that harmonious. Their chapter is worth careful reading.
- Steven, R. (1983) Classes in Contemporary Japan, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
- This unjustly neglected study of Japanese classes contains by far the most sophisticated analysis of Japan's blue-and white-collar workforce available in English. Steven rejects the hypothesis that Japan has become a middle-class society and backs up his argument with a wealth of empirical data. Chapter five on the working class is especially useful for its careful delineation of the roles of different types of workers (regular employees, part time, subcontract, temporary) and how women fit in.
- Woronoff, Jon. (1982) Japan's Wasted Workers, Tokyo, Lotus Press. By one of the best known journalists writing about contemporary Japan, this volume focuses attention on the service industry, on office work and on the bureaucracy. Woronoff argues that the inefficiencies and the misuse of labour in these sectors needs to be seen as the other side of Japan's industrial relations.
- Galenson, W. (1976) ‘The Japanese Labor Market’, in Hugh Patrick and Henry Rosovsky, (eds.) Asia's New Giant: How the Japanese Economy Works, Washington, Brookings, 587–671.
- Galenson's careful assessment of Japanese labour relations argues that the Japanese labour movement would do well by moving in the same direction that labour has taken in the West both in the interests of curbing ‘authoritarian tendencies in government and management’ and in obtaining a better deal for lower-income groups. Galenson's imputation of historical backwardness to Japanese labour relations in comparison to the West irritated Japanese scholars and became an explicit target in the Shirai book.
- Abegglen, J.C. (1973) Management and Worker: The Japanese Solution, Tokyo, Sophia University.
- This is an expanded and updated version of The Japanese Factory, Abegglen's 1958 book that almost alone created the myth about Japan's harmonious labour relations by placing inordinate stress on cultural continuity, groupism, and lifetime employment.
- Kamata Satoshi (1982) Japan in the Passing Lane: An Insider's Account of Life in a Japanese Auto Factory, New York, Pantheon.
- Life on the Toyota production line in 1972–73 as Kamata experienced it, the contents of this book show a work situation that could not be more different from the Abegglen presentation.
- Okochi Kazuo, Karsh, B. and Levine, S.B. (eds). (1973) Workers and Employers in Japan: The Japanese Employment Relations System, Tokyo, Tokyo University Press. Mikiyo Sumiya gives a brief historical overview in chapters two and three which sets the stage for the following thematic chapters on such topics as management organizations, workers’ organizations, and labour disputes. Written by Japanese mainstream scholars, these essays are strongly influenced by industrial relations theories developed by John T. Dunlup and Clark Kerr in the fifties.
- Cole, R.E. (1971) Japanese Blue Collar: The Changing Tradition, Berkeley, University of Calfornia Press.
- The book is an interpretation of Japanese labour relations in two subcontracting firms, one small and one large, manufacturing auto parts. It is valuable in showing just how the pressures to conform to enterprise goals increase in tempo with the stages of the workers’ lives and how the recalcitrant are either brought into line or forced out.
- Dore, R.P. (1973) British Factory—Japanese Factory: The Origins of National Diversity in Industrial Relations, Berkeley, University of California Press.
- Despite disclaimers in the preface, Dore indulges in grand sociological theorizing about convergency, Japan's ‘organization orientation’ (i.e. groupism), and late developers in this comparison of Japan and England. It is interesting as a reaction to Abegglen by a thoroughgoing partisan of social science as represented by the Princeton series on the modernization of Japan. Dore's book raised the possibility of the West converging in the Japanese direction.
- Cook, A.H. (1966) Japanese Trade Unionism, Ithaca, Cornell University Press. Still very useful for its lucid and detailed discussion of Japanese unions, especially if approached as a statement of the situation in the early years of the economic miracle.
- Levine, S.B. (1958) Industrial Relations in Postwar Japan, Urbana, University of Illinois Press.
- The classic work on Japanese industrial relations, Levine's book should be read by all. Levine has been the towering figure in Western scholarship on Japanese labour since the publication of this book.
- Moore, J.B. (1983) Japanese Workers and the Struggle for Power, 1945–1947, Madison, University of Wisconsin Press.
- A detailed, historical treatment of the Japanese labour movement during its most radical postwar phase, this book argues that industrial unionism was dominant in the late Forties at first and that it was management, not labour, that spearheaded the drive for enterprise unionism because it was much more amenable to control.
![Supercharge Your Next Research Paper: Research and write your next paper with Jenni AI.]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/112445/Skyscraper-econ.png"})