Contribution
to the International Communist Seminar
‘Economic Crises and Possibility of a Major World Crisis’
Brussels, 2-4
May 2002
www.icsbrussels.org , ics[at]icsbrussels.org
New Socialist Party of Japan
Crisis in Japan and Workers’ Movements
1- Crisis of Capitalism in Japan
(1) Since the end of the decade of 1970’s, the monopoly capitals of Japan have exploited workers by way of low wages and long working hours, stripping the rights of them, to attain international competitive potential, leading in fact to be called " Japan as No.1 ". Throughout the 1980’s the Japanese economy had recorded the higher growth rate than those of countries in Europe and North America. But as competition among international capitals intensified, Japan’s export was choked by high appreciation of the currency, Japanese Yen. Simultaneously, in addition to the excessive production facility, money flowing into Japan from the rest of the world triggered to bubble up asset values, which reached the peak in the end of the decade, and at last these financial foams exploded up.
(2) During the 1990’s the economy retreated seriously, turning the excessive production facilities and devalued stocks and lands into bad loans. The government of Japan, attempting to boost up the economy, issued an extraordinary sum of government bonds to cope with the situation, which, in fact, accelerated expansion of financial deficit: the bond issue rate occupying in the national budget scored 4.9% (with the bond amount of 5 trillion) in the fiscal 1975, and, in 2000, it recorded 25.8% ( 34 trillion). The accumulated balance of government bonds (debt of the state) exceeded 60% of the total GDP in the end of the 1990’s, and in the fiscal 2000 the ratio reached 97.1% of GDP finally. As a result, budgets for social services were cut off, thus burdens levied on the lives of workers swelled in their pensions, medical service and insurances for elderly care and employment.
(3) Since the end of the decade of 1990’s big business entities have abolished excessive facilities, cut off sub-contracting firms, reduced the number of employees and restrained wages for workers. The " flexible " employment situation has emerged, or the more destabilized employment practices have plagued. Thus the unemployment rate surged from 2.1% in 1990 to 4.7% in 1999, exceeding that of the United States. In 2002 the rate has reached 5.3%. Consequently even in the big business the traditional Japanese labor practice of " seniority system ", under which a worker can remain in the same workplace with the higher wage year after year in compliance with his/her length of service, has disappeared.
(4) Currently under the Koizumi government the neo-liberal, "structural reform " policy is being implemented. It bases on the principle of competition supported by the jungle philosophy, aggravating the living conditions of working population; their rights, social welfare, employment and quality of everyday life are worsening. Thus individual workers lose their consumption power, the whole nation entering the vicious circle of recession, high unemployment rate and financial deficit. Capitalists manage to survive by intensifying exploitation and trans-nationalizing enterprises, mainly, transferring facilities to the countries in Asia, or imperialist expansion of Japan’s capitals to the rest of the world.
2- Data Reflecting Situation of Workers
Here presented are interesting data indicating the situation of working population resulting from the intensified capitalist exploitation described above.
(1) More and more people have committed suicides since the end of the 1990’s in Japan. Since the year 1998 the number has grown consecutively, exceeding 30,000 annually, marking three times bigger than that caused by traffic accidents. Particularly men in their 50’s committed suicides in a large number. In fact they are the victims; they have been fired or the wages have been cut. In the fiscal 2000 over 3,000 men who were 55 years old had committed suicides, compared with the figure of the fiscal 1995, that was 1,700. The unemployment trend correlates closely to the development of increase and decrease of unemployed workers in number.
(2) The total working hours a year reached almost 2,200 hours in the 1980’s, which is by 500-600 hours longer than the figures of European and North American countries. In 1998 it shrunk to 1,947 hours due to the economic recession, which is approximately the same as those of the United States and United Kingdom, longer by 300-400 hours than those of Germany and France. Japanese workers hesitate to enjoy the right of paid holidays, taking only nine days a year, compared to the figures of 24 days for the United Kingdom, 31 days for Germany and 25 days for France.
(3) The wage hike developed with a rate approximately 2% in the latter half of the 1990’s, while in 2002 it turned to a drop. Traditionally in Japan the wage had not been set by the horizontal wage scheme but by a specific system called " seniority system " established respectively by a company, in which the first wage payment is extremely low but, gradually and through on-the-job-training, salary goes up year after year as he/she works for his/her company. But recently this mechanism has been decayed rapidly, and regular wage hike has not been made. Thus the total wage payment has plunged. A worker in Japan on the average lives in a house with a floor space of 93.3m² (177.5m² in the United States and 154.9m² in Italy), which was called " a rabbit hutch " by Europeans.
3- Problems and Prospects of Workers’ Movements
(1) The vital point lies in the following fact: not only no effective counter offensive has been made, though the exploitation has taken on a more violent form and the vested interests of workers have been attacked, but also the major stream among labor unions has inclined to affiliate to the company under which a union organizes workers. In other words, majority of the unions are a company-cooperative union. Another factor lies in the situation of political parties for working class; they are weak and dispersed.
(2) Traditionally " a company union " has based on " the seniority and service term wage system ", which used to a characteristic labor-management cooperative relationship of Japanese version. As explained above, though this mechanism is in debacle, " a company union " has not yet successfully transformed itself to adapt to the new environment, but it still seeks to stay within a range of specific company. The following data show the consequences.
Labor Conflicts
1975 participated by 4.6 million workers with 8.016 million days loss
1980 participated by 1.76 million with 1.001 million days loss
1999 participated by 0.11 million with 87 thousand days loss
Organized Workers into Labor Union
1980/31% 1995/25% 1999/22% 2000/21.5%
(3) The organization rate of workers into labor unions has decreased as a result of absence of struggles. But it is not especially low, comparing with those of the countries in Europe and North America, except Germany. The point lies in quality. A trade union here invites all the employees of a company, and this type of union counts almost 90% of all the trade unions in Japan. Except for trade unions of public service workers, most of the trade unions belong to big corporations, which are, in fact, characterized as company unions. The underlying concept is for a trade union to make total cooperation with the company in order to survive the races with other companies. Thus a trade union is more interested in distributing profits inside the company rather than in improving the social standard of the rights of workers. The conscience level of union members in Japan is weaker than that of unionists in the countries of Europe and North America, who are organized by industry and profession in which membership depends on individual voluntary will.
(4) The union members count 12 million, and 63% of them, or 7 million workers, belong to the national union, Union Rengo (Japanese Trade Unions Confederation). In addition, workers belong to the Zenroren (National Confederation of Trade Unions), affiliated to the Communist Party of Japan, which organizes 1.03 million workers, and the Zenrokyo (National Trade Union Council), which lines with the left stream of the former Socialist Party of Japan, uniting 350 thousand workers. The latter two organizations contain unions of smaller business entities, excluding those of big corporations that hold entire employees as members, and minor unions in the big corporations as well as general unions that organize workers horizontally. These trade unions often wage strikes, but the number of workers joining under them is small.
(5) In Japan the labor market has been split by enterprise since the pre-war era and, after the World War II, trade union movements resumed on the basis of this structure. Therefore a horizontal labor union movement independent of capital is traditionally weak. Under these circumstances as the capitalist economy declines to crisis, a labor union too inclines to get along with the fate of their company. Therefore it is particularly important for political parties of the working class to actively commit to orient workers in order to overcome this weakness.
(6) In Japan there are three political parties for the working class: the Communist Party, the Social Democratic party and the New Socialist Party. The Communist Party is the biggest, but, due to their strategic errors and sectionalism, their influence over the labor movements is limited. The Social Democratic Party often cooperates with the political parties for capitalists, dragged by the union Rengo. The party approves as lawful the Japan’s military forces, agreeing to maintain the military alliance with the United States. They totally lack an orientation to guide labor movements in order to break through the current impasse. The New Socialist Party is the smallest, but it embraces a number of active unionists who make intentional efforts to create independent labor movements by overcoming the organizational shortcomings to affiliate to a company which employees work for. The New Socialist Party enthusiastically supports the struggle of the Kokuro-Tosodan, or the Japan National Railway Union/Tosodan, which has fought for the past 14 years to restitute more than 1,000 workers who were dismissed when the national railway corporation was privatized in 1987.
(7) It provably takes fairly long time to organize effective labor offensives involving a mass of workers in Japan. But the raison d’etre of a company union is obviously being undermined. It is inevitable that proper labor movements may develop, independent of respective companies to which workers belong, uniting the unemployed and the employed together.
The New Socialist Party of Japan is determined to continue struggling in order to revitalize militant and class-conscious labor movements in the country in alliance with avant-garde labor union activists.
Tomiyama Eiko, Director, International Department
New Socialist Party of Japan
Phone: 81-3-3551-3980
Fax: 81-3-3551-6406
E-mail: honbu@sinsyakai.or.jp