Community Unionism - Community Unions in Japan

Community Unions in Japan

Community unions were formed in Japan in the early 1980’s. They emerged spontaneously from grassroots organizations and from labour councils (although labour councils account for a larger number of organizing activities). Labour councils that supported community unions were affiliated with Sohyo: a left leaning union confederation. These labour councils were in charge of different regions and directly represented workers by forming community unions. Labour councils held relative autonomy from the larger national confederation. They were able to achieve this because they maintained their own finances and staff. Thus, community unions were dependant on labour councils for resources that supported these organizations. Because workers with part time employment were excluded from union membership at those firms, labour councils sought to represent people with part-time employment and people who worked in small firms in a given region. Councils found these workers through “labour problem hotlines”. Because of their independence from the larger confederation, organizing activities varied with each labour council.

The range of activities among these labour councils included:

• organizing regional level rallies and demonstrations.

• engaging in electoral campaigns during local and national elections.

• making policy requests to local governments.

• giving support to member unions when they were in a labour dispute.

• promoting unionization of un-unionized workers.

• getting involved in social movements at the regional level workers.

In 1989, Sohyo was replaced with a formation of a new confederation: Rengo. This restructuring impacted the relationship that labour councils had with community unions: labour councils would no longer organize workers; they were now a part of Rengo’s Regional Organizations. These Regional Organizations do not have the freedom and activities that labour councils once had and do not support community unions thus some community unions broke up during this time. Community unions that remained faced challenges dealing with finances and autonomy workers.

Japanese community unions function differently than U.S, Canadian, Australian, and U.K community unions: their membership turnover is high, and membership rates are low. They are substantially smaller, have a weak financial base-requiring members to donate- and have high rank and file participation. These community unions take the form of a specific organizational model: Community Organization/No Union Partner. This framework of community unionism resembles U.S. and Canadian Worker Centers but in practice is quite different. In addition, Japanese community unions do not tend to reflect coalition building like U.S, Canada, Australia, and U.K. This can be explained by Japan’s lack of community based organizations able to form alliances with community unions, and that Japanese community unions pursue individual issues opposed to broader range of issues that affect livelihoods of many people. Most issues that community unions deal with are: disputes over dismissals, working hours and leave, harassment, demotion or reduction in wages, discrimination, and working conditions. Community unions try to negotiate a settlement for the workers complaint and if it falls through, then are redirected to government labour committees or courts. Once a community union wins a case for a worker, the worker usually gives a part of his/her compensation back to the community union, and then resigns.