Fighting on all Fronts (54 page)

On 1 August 1931 the Japan Communist Party organised an illegal gathering and demonstration for Anti-War Day in a number of areas demanding the withdrawal of Japanese troops from Manchuria, Korea and Taiwan. Communist Party affiliated unions and the legal left protested against the war in 1932, holding partly illegal demonstrations on International Anti-War Day and International Youth Day as well as a 30-minute strike.

The Japan Communist Party soon attracted the attention of the authorities. While 1932 was the peak of its membership and publication of magazines, in October 1932 nearly 1,500 activists were arrested nationally, including party members, youth activists and
Zenkyō
(Communist
Party dominated union federation) members. By 1935 the last remaining Central Committee member had been arrested and the final issue of the party’s newspaper
Akahata
(Red Flag) had been published. Despite the best efforts of activists around the country to rebuild the party, repression stopped it reforming until 1946.
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Workers’ resistance

In 1933 there were 1.9 million factory workers and of this number women represented 49 percent. This was the first time that men outnumbered women factory workers. As
Table 1
indicates, strikes occurred during this period and continued throughout the war. Although unionisation rates were low—about 5 percent—the number of organised workers rose by 25 percent between 1934 and 1936. Strikes reached a high of 2,456 in 1931 and, after a slight decline in 1935, labour began to mobilise and move leftwards once again. There were 1,915 strikes in 1934 and 1,975 strikes in 1936. In 1936 and 1937 the number of workers joining strikes or slowdowns peaked again. In 1937, 231,622 workers participated in strikes, the largest number since 1919.
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Table 1: Number of strikes and workers participating

Sources:
Ohara Shakai Mondai Kenkyūjō (Ohara Institute for Social Research),
Annual Report on Japanese Labour 1935
, p217; 1938, p132; 1965, p14; 2011, p1057. A Fujihara,
Nihon Minshu no Rekishi 9: Senso to Minshu
(The History of the Japanese People, vol 9: War and the People), 1975, p180; S Shioda,
Nihon Shakai Undō Shi
(History of Japan’s Social Movements), 1982, p62; Y Nishinarita,
Kindai Nihon Rōshi Kankeishi no Kenkyū
(Research on the History of Japan’s Modern Labour-Management Relations), 1988, p232.

The main factor causing strikes in the late 1930s was working conditions, which continued to deteriorate with working hours increasing and overtime normalised so that 15-hour days became widespread. Slogans such as “Luxury is the enemy” were fed to the workers to keep them working. Workers, however, were not permitted to celebrate May Day; the 26 February incident (an attempted military coup) was used as the pretext for banning it in 1936 and it was not celebrated again until 1946.
⁴⁰

Strikes, including a planned national general strike in March 1932, were suppressed but in the early 1930s the number of actions in the military and military factories increased. In March 1932, under the leadership of
Zenkyō
, the Tokyo subway workers’ strike successfully linked the workplace to the war zone and demanded improvements in workers’ conditions. The impact of this success was widespread. Strikes were larger and the government classified two thirds of them as “assertive”, up from a quarter in 1930 and 1931. It took yet another military adventure to undermine worker resurgence. In July 1937 Japan again went to war, this time invading the Chinese heartland. According to Andrew Gordon, “Had it not been for the war in China, which began in July and led workers to restrain demands in cooperation with the ‘holy war’, the year 1937 would have been by far the time of greatest labour protest in Japan’s history”.
⁴¹

For the first time since 1939 the number of strikes increased in 1943 (417), well into the Pacific War, before declining to 296 in 1944. The numbers of workers participating in strike action also decreased between 1940 and 1944. By 1945 although the number of strikes had fallen to 256, the number of workers participating in strikes was 16 times higher than in 1944.
⁴²

As the war ground on Japanese society and industry descended into a disastrous state. Sabotage was frequent: a general reported that in July 1944 an estimated 10 percent of the aircraft manufactured in Japan were defective. As the old type of strike declined a new kind of “strike” became more frequent: absenteeism. In 1943 a 10 percent absentee rate was reported in war plants, rising to an average of 15 percent by mid-1944. The Kanagawa Prefecture Industry Association newspaper reported on 30 May 1940 that “absenteeism at its peak was 22 percent, and at its lowest 10 percent with the average about 15 percent. This is not just our prefecture but a national trend”.
⁴³

Figures for April 1943 indicate the absentee rate for women workers at the Kawasaki Aeroplane Factory was 44 percent compared with 20 percent for male workers. In general absenteeism was higher among women than men.
⁴⁴
A doctor reported one third of people claiming illness were
not sick, while Dower says that by July 1945 absenteeism had deprived Japan of half of its potential working hours.
⁴⁵
In the final days of the war Chinese workers forced to labour in a copper mine in the north rose up against the inhumane conditions. Estimates suggest 400 died in the year 1944-1945 and many also died on the day of the uprising.
⁴⁶

Dissolution of the union movement

Elements of the union movement had been active in opposing the war and growing militarism but by 1937 many of Japan’s representative trade unions had limited their industrial action and virtually stopped functioning as trade unions. Illegal unions, which included groups such as the Japan National Railway Workers Preparatory Committee, were also suppressed at this time. By July 1940 the
Nihon Rōdō Sōdōmei
union federation had dissolved as had most of the remaining non-federation affiliated unions. It became part of
Sanpō
(Sangyō Hōkoku Kai—Patriotic Industrial Association) in which the enterprise was seen as one family (
jigyō ikka
). The police, with the collaboration of right wing labour leaders, organised and supervised
Sanpō
for permanent employees and created
Rōhō
(Rōmu Hōkoku Kai—Patriotic Labour Association) for casual workers in 1938.
Sanpō
organised every workshop with the objective of compelling workers to submit unconditionally to forced labour, overwork and low wages.

With both organisations the police were able to control approximately 80 percent of the workforce. As the war dragged on and managing workers increased in difficulty, big business used
Sanpō
to indoctrinate workers with the ideology that the enterprise was an extension of Japan’s unique family system—the head of the enterprise was the head of
Sanpō
.
⁴⁷
A number of important industrial disputes occurred, however, even after the dissolution of the union movement. Many struggles broke out nationally due to workers’ heightened class consciousness and their resistance to the war.
⁴⁸
In places where unions were weak or where the traditional May Day march could not be held, other forms of celebration were held—union meetings, speeches, forums, mountain-climbing picnics and sumo wrestling.
⁴⁹

Strikes did not disappear entirely and not all unions disappeared during the war. Many of the struggles in this period focused on the wages system and from 1939 the labour system.
⁵⁰
Current research has so far revealed that one of the most active of unions throughout the war was the Printers’ Union based in Tokyo which transformed itself into the Printers’ Club (
Shuppanko Kurabu
), but there may have been others. The
club stated that by continuing to exist they wanted to “show the determination of Japan’s entire union movement”.
⁵¹

The Director of the Printers’ Club, Shibata Keiichiro, stated that “our members thought that no matter how much strain we were put under, we had to ensure the club survived”.
⁵²
He observed that: “The right wing trade union officials dissolved the organisations and co-operated with the military. They sold workers out to the enemy and because of that many other organisations were forcibly dissolved. We thought that the club would also be ordered to dissolve. If we continued in the same way and with the same [union] activities we would be looked at as ‘red’ [communist], which would lead to immediate repression, and we thought we needed to continue the club… If workers stood firm together and fought we would raise our class consciousness… We decided it was important to research becoming an organisation like a consumers cooperative or a study group to improve print workers’ skills, organisations that anyone would think was necessary”.
⁵³

In February 1940 the Printers’ Club had 1,500 members. When the police demand that it disband in March, members formed a book club and published a
haiku
(Japanese poetry) journal. The Printers’ Club held a fake dissolution party in August, but in October they established three travel clubs, initiated a cooking class and organised a hike attended by 50 people. The Printers’ Club continued to meet, print materials and conduct political education activities until most of the leading male members were arrested in 1942. The club then continued under the auspices of the women members.
⁵⁴

Nothing escaped the eyes of the state. Foreign Ministry files record an official pondering reports of industrial sabotage and rumours of drunken workers cheering Stalin. Even students too young to have learnt Marxism in the 1920s and 1930s who were recruited for factory work “appeared to have imbibed class consciousness almost intuitively”.
⁵⁵

As the war dragged on the cost of subsidising the conflict increased. Inflation ensured the cost of living rose while wages declined. If wages in 1934 are taken as 100, by 1940 workers’ wages had decreased to 81.9 while the cost of living reached 180. Predictably, working conditions deteriorated. Actions occurred because people were angry over the hunger caused by the war, low wages and poor conditions. Workers protested by refusing overtime, were absent or adopted “go slow” measures at work.
⁵⁶

In 1942 communists organised and led action in a steel works controlled by the navy, and sabotage by workers at a Hitachi manufacturing works resulted in a 30 percent decline in production. These workers
demanded improved working conditions including to the company’s pay system. At this factory 13 people demanded improvements to their working conditions. Because of management’s negative attitude and under direction from communist members, workers protested by sabotaging the products including by producing “rejects”.

At the Nikko Electrics factory 1,500 people signed to register their demand for a wage increase and a reduction in daily working hours. The police concluded that in these last two actions communists had formed a group in the factory and were attempting to convince workers of left politics. The Ministry of Internal Affairs Police Bureau’s edited volume,
The State of Social Movements
(
Shakai Undō no Jōkyō
), notes for 1942 that there was an increase in late arrival or early departure from work and an increase in absenteeism, which rose to over 40 percent in some factories. When the bombing of Tokyo started (in 1942 and then again in 1944) absenteeism rose to 49 percent. In 1944 absenteeism levels were running at between 24 and 51 percent in shipbuilding and between 21 and 51 percent in aircraft manufacturing.
⁵⁷

In 1943 many of the struggles were around wage increases, improvements to conditions and opposition to management; one was around the unfair distribution of food and other goods and a half-day strike was over the demand for a day off. Women workers from a manufacturer of aircraft parts decided to take a day off; at first they gathered in a nearby shrine and then went swimming. There were also demands for improved working conditions by workers in the Japan Pharmaceutical company.

High school and university students were also forced to work and often did so unwillingly. However, they did resist. The following is an example from Shibaura Manufacturing in Tokyo where several hundred students were confined to their dormitory for stealing some food. They retaliated with two days of sabotage and rotation of work groups so that one group was always absent, ensuring that no finished products could be completed.
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