THE ＧＬＯＢＡＬＩＺＡＴＩＯＮ ＆ ＧＯVＥＲＮＡＮＣＥ ＰＲＯＪＥCＴ， ＨＯＫＫＡＩＤＯ ＵＮＩＶＥＲＳＩＴＹＷＯＲＫＩＮＧ ＰＡＰＥＲ ＳＥＲＩＥＳ

Toward Social Movement Unionism?
A perspective of transpacific labor movement.
Ⅰ－９

Toru Shinoda, Waseda University＊

Paper for the Symposium, East Asia-Europe-USA Progressive Scholars’ Forum2003 , 11-15 October, 2003.
＊

None of these papers should be cited without the author’s permission.

1

Toward Social Movement Unionism?
A perspective of transpacific labor movement.

Toru Shinoda
Waseda University, School of Social Sciences

Paper Presented for East Asia-Europe-the USA
Progressive Scholars’ Forum, 2003

October 12, 2003

1-6-6, Nishi Waseda
Shinjyuku-ku, Tokyo
169-8050, Japan
Phone: 81-3-5286-1448
E-mail: torus@waseda.jp

2

From Japanese to transpacific labor movement
What happened with Japanese labor movement for the last decade? How did theJapanese labor movement spend the frustrated time of so-called the “lost decade” whenworking people and their families in Japan suffered unprecedented political, economic,
and social disaster? Did the political distrust, high unemployment, and social apathytransform the well-known (super!?) stabled industrial relations and (ultra!?) responsible
unionism as the core of Japanese enterprise community? Did these enormous stresses andstrains cause the workers and their families to have class-consciousness that had
disappeared in Japanese society for a long time? Did part-time, especially women
working at service industry, workers marginalized or excluded from the enterprisecommunity organize their own unions to protect their extremely vulnerable status in
Japanese labor market? Did these Japanese working people, no matter whether they areorganized or unorganized, full-time or part-time, men or women, unite in overthrowing
the government that had failed to help them in crisis?
It is hard to answer these questions at this stage when we have still no clear data
showing that Japanese industrial relations system has been basically changed or Japanese3

workers have been politically and socially more radicalized. Although truly there was nohuge organizing of part-time workers and no serious political action of working people
against the government, we do not really know the reason why there was no such eventthat could be predictable in other countries at the same conditions.
But, of course, this does not mean that Japanese workers did just call theirsuffering fate and accept it. It is wrong to say that the Japanese labor movement justlooked on with their arms folded. Showing a main problem and its countermeasures ofJapanese labor movement, this paper raises a question: whether Japanese organized labor
movement, especially the biggest national labor federation, RENGO (Japanese Trade
Union Confederation), shifts, if partially, its policy line and organizational structure
toward “social movement unionism” that its counterparts have developed in Brazil, South
Africa, and Korea since the 1980s and in the United States since the 90s.
It will take more time that this question can be answered with more concrete
results of the policy and organizational changes that are currently, if partially, observed.
Therefore, substantially, this paper aims at offering an alternative perspective that
reexamines the past, present, and future of Japanese labor movement in the context of the
new trend of the social movement unionism across the world.1 This perspective,1

On more comprehensive information of Japanese labor market, industrial relations, andlabor politics until the mid 1990s, see Mari Sako and Hiroki Sato, eds. Japanese Labour

4

simultaneously, can be extended geographically to the transpacific area. The social
movement unionism, as mentioned above, has been discussed including the cases of the
U.S., Korea, and Philippines. This unionism also has emphasized international solidarity
and in fact there has been more and more interactions among unions of these countries.
The labor politics of the countries in the both sides of the Pacific, in fact, hasbeen interconnected since the late 19th century, especially the Cold War era. Theinterconnectedness was more than union foreign policy and international economic
conflicts. Some model of labor movement such us business unionism or syndicalism wastransplanted, developed, modified, and re-transplanted across the Pacific. Until when will
we keep considering labor movement as the national? Why don’t we think abouttranspacific labor governance? In fact, in the current context of economic globalization,
the future of Japanese labor movement can not be discussed without considering thefuture of Chinese, Korean, and U.S. labor movement.
Thus, this presentation is the first, if tiny, step to broadening spatially ourperspective into the labor movement. In the following pages, the first part explains what

and Management in Transition: Diversity, flexibility and participation, London and New
York: LSE/Routledge, 1997. On Japanese politics of the early 1990s, Purnendra Jain andTakashi Inoguchi eds. Japanese Politics Today: Beyond Karaoke Democracy, Melbourne:
Macmillan Education Australia, 1997. On a critical analysis of the Lost Decade, Jiro
Yamaguchi, “The Meaning of ‘the Social’ in Japanese Reform” (A paper presented in thisconference).

5

the social movement unionism is. From the perspective of the social movement unionism,
the second part describes the main problem that Japanese labor movement had. The thirdpart shows briefly some examples that the RENGO may shift its policy line andorganizational structure from its policy documents. The last part lists the questions thathave to be studied in future, particularly in order to place this Japanese case in the context
of the transpacific labor movement.

What is social movement unionism?
There has been a consensus in the social science literature for the last two
decades that the labor movement in developed countries was in crisis. The literature hasreported repeatedly declining strike activity, falling union density, shrinking real wages,
and growing job insecurity in those countries. This picture that the labor movement is incrisis has been projected on the depressed mood of labor studies that the labor movement
plays much less role in social change than before. This crisis of the labor movement andlabor studies seems not temporary for many because its main cause is currently growing
economic globalization and its political, social, and cultural effects against the labor
movement.2
2

On more explanation of this crisis, see Beverly J. Silver, Forces of Labor: Workers’
Movements and Globalization since 1870, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge

6

However, as Beverly Silver says, “beginning in the late 1990s, a growing
number of observers were suggesting that labor movements were on the upsurge, … as amounting popular backlash against the dislocation being provoked by contemporary
globalization.”3 The surprisingly aggressive demonstration against the World Trade
Organization meeting in Seattle in November 1999 along with the new activism of theAmerican Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organization (AFL-CIO)4,
particularly, contributed to resurgent interest in labor movement and labor studies amongsocial scientists in the U.S.5
Inspired by the reports of militant labor movements against the globalization indeveloping countries from the 1980s such as Korea, Brazil, South Africa, andPhilippines,6 thus, the concept of the social movement unionism has been mainly
developed among these U.S. social scientists and activist intellectuals. In fact, these

University Press, pp.1–2.
3
Silver, Forces of Labor, p.2.
4 On the new activism of the AFL-CIO, see Lowell Turner, Harry C. Katz, and Richard W.
Hurd, eds. Rekindling the Movement: Labor’s Quest for Relevance in the 21st century,
Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2001.
5
Silver, Forces of Labor, p.2.
6
On the militant labor movement in Korea, see Hagen Koo, Korean Workers: The
Culture and Politics of Class Formation, Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press,
2001; On the case of South Africa and Brazil, Gay W. Seidman, Manufacturing
Militance: Workers’ Movement in Brazil and South Africa, 1970-1985, Berkeley, Los
Angels, and London, University of California Press, 1994; On the case of Philippines, see
Kim Scipes, KMU: Building Trade Unionism in the Philippines, 1980-1994, Quezon
City: New Day Publishers and San Francisco: Avaalable from SULU Arts and Books,
1996.

7

scholars and intellectuals explain and define the social movement unionism in their own
ways. But the following description of the social movement unionism by Kim Moody isseemingly a common ground covering more or less these explanations and definitions.

Social movement unionism is one that is deeply democratic, as that is the best
way to mobilize the strength of numbers in order to apply maximum economic leverage.
It is militant in collective bargaining in the belief that retreat anywhere only leads to more
retreats – an injury to one is an injury to all. It seeks to craft bargaining demands thatcreate more jobs and aid the whole class. It fights for power and organization in theworkplace or on the job in the realization that it is there that the greatest leverage exists,
when properly applied. It is politically by acting independently of the retreating parties ofliberalism and social democracy, whatever the relations of the union with such parties. It
multiplies its political and social power by reaching out to other sectors of the class, bethey other union, neighborhood-based organizations, or other social movements. It fights
for all the oppressed and enhances its own power by doing so.7

In this description, a key phrase is “an injury to one is an injury to all.” The mottoof American legendary radical union, the Industrial Workers of World (IWW), and thelogo of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) challenge theorganizational principle of capitalism: divide and rule.
According to the historical study of capitalism, a fundamental contradiction of
the capitalism is that the expansion of capitalist production strengthens labor movement
as a reaction and the concession (such as wage increase) made to control the labor

7

Kim Moody, Workers in a Lean World: Unions in the International Economy, London
and New York: Verso, 1997, p.4-5.

8

movement brings decrease of profitability in the capitalist system while capitalist effort toincrease the profit breaks an existing, if unofficial, social compacts and strengthening
commodification (such as layoff and welfare cut) of labor brings decrease of legitimacy
in the capitalist system. This dynamic of the de-commodification of labor/theestablishment of new social compacts and the re-commodification of labor/the break of
the old compact has been combined with “spatial differentiation among geographicalareas” regarding the level/intensity of the labor commodification.8
Referring to the post-Second World War social contracts, for example,
Immanuel Wallerstein expresses this mechanism more clearly; “One could cut inseveral-hundred-millions western workers and still make the system profitable. But if one
cut in several billion Third World workers, there would be nothing left for further capital
accumulation.” This spatial differentiation, in other words, drawing boundaries as to whowill be “cut in” and who will be “left out” has also taken place within each country,
industry, and company.
Beverly Silver points that there are three forms of the drawing boundary: 1.
segmenting labor market (pursued mainly capital) 2. bounding citizenship (pursued
mainly states) and 3. constructing exclusionary class identities on nonclass bases

8

Silver, Forces of Labor, p.20.

9(pursued mainly workers themselves).9 These forms are interconnectedly used to be
applied for different conditions of each case. Thus, labor history of each countries shows
how race, ethnicity, and gender identities has been (re)constructed in combining all thethree forms and how labor movement has been engaged in the drawing boundaries amongwhite/nonwhite, immigrant/native, and male/female workers to protect the interest of its
members under the social compact that the labor movement has been involved in.
As the key phrase, “an injury to one is an injury to all” suggests, a goal of thesocial movement unionism is to break the boundary drawn not only by capital and/or state
but also existing labor movement for the social differentiation regarding thelevel/intensity of labor commodification. But this is not the goal that the only social
movement unionism has among the labor movement. In fact, many organized labor
movement regardless its movement style and organizational size do not deny officiallyequality among workers and ones with high unionization rate may come under a strongpressure to reduce any differentiation among its union members.
What the social movement unionism is distinguished from other unionism is theway in which the differentiation is reduced. The essence of the social movement
unionism is rank-and-file participation and expanded mobilization. The social movement

9

Silver, Forces of Labor, p.24.

10

unionism tries to mobilize other groups and their members as well as its rank-and-filemembers in its organizing and other campaign. Many reports of the social movement
unionism, in fact, show that environmental, campus, religious, human rights, and othergroups have increasingly joined with unions in various campaigns from local throughnational to international levels.10
Involving broader social movement in union campaigns is often more than union
tactics. The social movement unionism, thus, can be seen as a vehicle through which atsunami of social movement appears. Building the social movement unionism andbroadening social movement in a society is an interactive process. Involving broadersocial movement in union campaigns makes it easier to break down obstacles to member
involvement and activism such as union bureaucratism and members’ indifference totheir unions. Involving broader social movement in union campaigns also makes it easierto accomplish institutional change such as labor law reform that will enhances power ofactivism of members. And Involving broader social movement in union campaign
provides wider opportunity for more diverse people to be mobilize and lays thefoundation for new social movement.11

10

Lowell Turner and Richard W. Hurd, “Building Social Movement Unionism: The
Transformation of the American Labor Movement,” in Turner, Katz, and Hurd eds.
Rekindling the Movement, pp.10-11.
11Turner and Hurd, “Building Social Movement Unionism,” pp.11-12.

11

A major problem of Japanese labor movement
In Japan, where is the boldest boundary drawn in the differentiation regarding laborde-commodification such as increasing employment security, wage level, and welfare
benefit? Japan has basically maintained, if partially modified, two-tiered economic
structure through her economic development. Foreign observers often view Japanese
corporate community with the image of gigantic, powerful, and prestigious companies(DAIKIGYO in Japanese) such as TOYOTA, HONDA, and SONY, their white color,largely male, workers in intelligent buildings, and few technicians working along withrobots in automated factories. But this is not the only picture of the world of Japanesecompany.
According to a statistics of the Ministry of Industry and Technology in 1993,
for example, Small and medium-sized enterprise (CHUSHO KIGYO or CHUSHO) with
300 or fewer employees totaled about 412,000 which is 99% of the total manufacturing
establishment while the CHUSHO had about 7,810,000 employees which is 72% of thetotal manufacturing employees.12 According to a statistics of the Ministry of Welfare andLabor in 2001, furthermore, 26% of total employees, 13.8 millions, are the irregular
12“Seisan wa Shuyaku, Jyoken wa Wakiyaku no Chusho Rodo,”(Chusho labor: leading
manufacturing but secondary benefit), Hiroba Yunion, November 1995, pp.10-11.

12(HI-SEISHAIN) and 7 millions among them are part time workers (PAAT), mainly
women working at service industry. The HI-SEISHAIN increased by about 4 millions
from 1993 to 2001 while regular employees (SEISHAIN) decreased by about 2 millions
during that time.13
But the essence of the two-tiered economic structure is not the fact that thetwo different types of companies and workers’ groups cohabit but one that the latter(CHUSHO and HI-SEISHAIN) plays a role of a bumper for the former (DAIKIGYO andSEISHAIN). The majority of the CHUSHO, for example, are subcontractors of
DAIKIGYO. Jon Woronoff describes their relationship slightly exaggeratedly but not somisleadingly as follows:

Basically, larger companies use subcontractors to carry out activities or
produce parts or articles that no longer interest them. These are usually less profitable
operations or products. They are more labor-intensive and unpleasant. Thus,
subcontractors produce older consumer electronics or fabricate smaller parts of ships.
Sometimes they work in the parent company’s own factory, sending their employees to do
dirty and degrading tasks like painting, greasing, repairing minor defects or just cleaning
up after hours. Naturally, subcontractors also try to get ahead by introducing improved
techniques, adopting new technologies or acquiring better equipment. But this does little
for their bottom line because the parent company, once it realizes they can produce morecheaply, demands that prices be cut. It exerts similar pressure whenever prices

13“Hi-Seishain Yo Nin ni Hitori no Jitsuzo,”(Irregular employees: a fourth of the total
employees), Hiroba Yunion, June 2002, pp.4-5. There is no clear definition of the
HI-SEISHAIN except the meaning of one who is NOT (HI) SEISHAIN. But if themeaning of the SEISHAIN is interpreted as a full member of an enterprise community,
HI-SEISHAIN means non- or, at most, quasi-member of the community.

13

competition occurs or it wishes to export more. In fact, the pressure for lower prices isunending. Worse, in most cases, subcontractors do not even get a fixed price for their
output; it is always negotiable. Nor do they receive a written contract in most instances;
they have to accept verbal commitments.14

This difficulty of the CHUSHO in the two-tiers economic structure has been
passed on to the workers of the CHUSHO in their labor conditions. The level of the fixed
wages of the CHUSHO workers with 100 and fewer employees in 1996, for example, are
76% of the ones of the DAIKIGYO workers with 1000 and more employees. The level ofthe fixed wages of small business workers with 4 and fewer employees (REISAI) are 65%of the one of the DAIKIGYO workers. The level of bonus of the CHUSHO workers with
1000 and fewer is 65% of the one of the DAIKIGYO workers. In the case of the
CHUSHO workers with 100 and fewer it is 41%. In the case of the REISAI workers with
4 and fewer it is 25%.15
86% of the DAIKIGYO workers’ in 1996, moreover, had a five-day
workweek while only 49% of the CHUSHO workers and 23% of the REISAI workers had
the five-day workweek. The level of retirement money of the CHUSHO workers with 300
and fewer employees is 42% of the one of the DAIKIGYO workers with 5000 and more

14

Jon Woronoff, The Japanese Economic Crisis, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992,
p.70-71.
15“Konnani Hidoi! Chusho Rodosha no Jyoken Kakusa,” (What the serious
differentiation of labor conditions between DAIKIGYO and CHUSHO workers!), Hiroba
Yunion, April 1998, pp.31-32.

14

employees. In the case of the CHUSHO with 100 and fewer employees it is 28%. The
level of the welfare benefit of the CHUSHO workers with 1000 and fewer employees is athird of the DAIKIGYO workers’ with 5000 and more employees. In the case of the
CHUSHO workers with 100 and fewer employees is 20%.16
According to a survey in 1999, on the other hand, many of the PAAT (part-timeworkers) did not have retirement money and welfare benefits that even the CHUSHO
workers, if much less than the DAIKIGYO workers,’ had. About 70% of the PAAT
thought that their levels of labor conditions were lower than the ones of the SEISHAIN(regular employee) who did the same job at the same place.17 Another survey in 2000
indicates that more and more employers would hire HI-SEISHAIN (irregular employees)
such as the PAAT for the position where the SEISHAIN occupied because of the lower
costs of the HI-SEISHAIN.18
So what did Japanese labor movement do for these CHUSHO and HI-SEISHAIN
workers? The answer is that the Japanese labor movement kept basically them
unorganized. In 1985, for example, the number of the DAIKIGYO workers with 1000and more employees was 8.3 millions and 64% of them were organized while the number

16“Konnani Hidoi! Chusho Rodosha no Jyoken Kakusa,” pp.32-33.
RENGO Hakusho 2002 (RENGO white paper 2002), 2001, p.49.
18“Seishain: Yo Nin ni Hitori no Jitsuzo,”, p.5.
17

15of the CHUSHO workers with 100 to 999 employees was 8.6 millions and 28% of themwere organized. But the number of the CHUSHO workers with 99 and fewer employees
was 21 millions and only 2.5% were organized. The union density as a total was 24.4% inthis year. In 1997, furthermore, the number of the DAIKIGYO workers increased to 9.8
millions and 59% of them were organized while the one of the CHUSHO workers
increased to 11 millions and 20% were organized. But the number of the CHUSHO
workers with 99 and fewer employees jumped to 27 millions and just 1.5% of them wereorganized. The union density as a total was 22.6% in this year.19 The number of the PAAT
(part-time workers), on the other hand, was 6.3 millions and the union density among
them was just only 1.5% in 1990. In 2000, the number of the PAAT jumped to 10 millions,but the union density was still only 2.6%. The union density as a total in this year was
21.5%.20
Why did the Japanese unions keep the CHUSHO and HI-SEISHAIN workers
unorganized? Because this was a result of the postwar social contract that labor andcapital made in Japan. Japan experienced enormous rising of labor militancy after theSecond World War, especially 1950s. In order to overcome restraints brought by thistsunami of labor militancy, Japanese manufacturing companies such as steel,
19
20

RENGO Hakusho 1999, p.85.
RENGO Hakusho 2001, p.76.

16

shipbuilding, automobile, and electrical equipment developed “a multilayered
subcontracting system that simultaneously allowed them to guarantee employment to(and establish cooperative relations with) a core labor force, while obtaining low-cost
inputs and flexibility from lower rungs of the supply network."21
To make this system work, these companies desired that their subcontractors were
free from the restraint of labor militancy and their enterprise unions as a partnercooperated with their management by leaving their subcontractors unorganized,
preventing their rival, often militant, unions from organizing them, or by organizing themand controlling the subcontractors unions. A similar pattern was happened in the case ofunorganized HI-SEISHAIN workers. And this is an essence of postwar Japaneseindustrial relations: job security of core workers at the expense of periphery workers.22

Is The RENGO Heading Toward Social Movement Unionism?
So how has the RENGO dealt with this problem of Japanese two-tiered economic
21

Silver, Forces of Labor, p.42.
On a general description of industrial relations of subcontractors, see Norma Chalmers,
Industrial Relations in Japan: the Peripheral Workforce, London and New York:
Routledge, 1989; On the case of steel, see Andrew Gordon, Wages of Affluence: Laborand Management in Postwar Japan, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001; On thecase of Automobile, see Michael Cusumano, The Japanese Automobile Industry:
Technology and Management at Nissan and Toyota, Cambridge, Harvard University
Press, 1985; On the case of the HI-SEISHAIN workers, see Kumazawa Makoto,translated by Andrew Gordon and Mikiso Hane, Portraits of the Japanese Workplace:22

17

structure? The RENGO was established in 1989 through the labor unification movement
since the 1970s led by the DAIKIGYO enterprise unions. The aim of the labor unification
movement was that these DAIKIGYO unions seized hegemony of Japanese labor
movement which had held by public sector unions such as municipal, national railway,
postal workers, and teachers’ union, associated with the Japan Socialist Party, the NO.1
opposition party in Postwar Japan.
The DAIKIGYO enterprise unions, until the 1970s, had remained independent fromnational labor politics as long as they could secure the job security of their members andthey could be cut in their company’s growth. But as Japanese economic growth slowed
down since the 1970s, the DAIKIGYO unions shifted to be involved in the national labor
politics because they needed more and more to rely on forces outside their company,
especially the government and their policy, in order to secure their members’ job andmaintain, at least, their living standard.
According to the original plan of the unification movement that the leading
DAIKGYO unions held, the RENGO was supposed to keep public sector unions andother left-wing private sector (mainly CHUSHO) unions out of it. But these unions, after
all, joined the RENGO in only two years after the DAIKIGYO-led RENGO had been

Labor Movements, Workers, and Managers, Boulder: Westview Press, 1996.

18

established in 1987. In fact, these public sector unions and left-wing private unions began
to shift their class-oriented policy line to sector-oriented one so that they could have an
opportunity to represent alternative sectors to the DAIKIGYO sector in the RENGO. This
early joining of public sector unions and non-DAIKIGYO private unions widened thepolicy stance of the RENGO and broadened its social and economic perspective than the
DAKIGYO unions had expected.23
Reading through the policy documents has adopted since the first biannual
conference and every years’ SHUNTO (“where much coordination takes place between
and among employers and unions at the industry and national levels in the process ofwage bargaining”)24 policy, in fact, it turns out that reducing the differentials of labor
conditions between DAIKIGYO and CHUSHO workers and between SEISHAIN and
HI-SEISHAIN workers has been moved from the margin into the center of its policy. The
ways in which the goal should be accomplished has been also shifting from lobbying thegovernment to increase its subsidy to the CHUSHO enterprises into more intervening
collective bargaining in each enterprise by urging each CHUSHO union to set minimum

23

On the formation of the RENGO, see Toru Shinoda, “Rengo and policy participation:
Japanese-style neo-corporatism?, in Sako and Sato, eds. Japanese Labour andManagement in Transition.
abour and Management in Transition.
24
Mari Sako, “Shunto: The role of employer and union coordination at the industry andinter-sectoral levels,” Sako and Sato, eds. Japanese Labour and Management inTransition.

19

wage level within its enterprise.25 Even the DAIKIGYO unions has been recently urged
to set the minimum wage level within its enterprise so as to raise the wages of the PAAT
working at its enterprise who are often unorganized.26
It is important to note that the RENGO has emphasized “social,” “fairness,” and“power” in its policy line since the late 1990s. Drawing on the terms, seemingly, the
RENGO has tried to appeal itself to the public as a ‘new labor movement’ fighting for‘humanistic’ moral economy against ‘coldhearted’ globalization based on market
mechanism. In fact, the RENGO called itself “social labor movement” in the late 90s.27
And now the RENGO identifies itself as a social movement and calls other social
movements to make a coalition.28 The current keyword in the RENGO documents and its
presidential speech is “solidarity.” The actions for supporting the CHUSHO and
HI-SEISHAIN workers became the symbol of the current RENGO movement.
Behind this policy sifting of the RENGO, there was a structural change among theindustrial federations affiliating to the RENGO. The DAIKIGYO unions, especially theones of leading export industry such as steel, shipbuilding, automobile, and electrical

25

RENGO Hakusho 2003, p.34.
RENGO Hakusho 2002, p.27.
27
RENGO Hakusho, 1998, p.34.
28
The RENGO 7th biannual conference policy 2001. The RENGO invited representativesof other social movements such as environment and human rights in its May Day
gathering in 2003.
26

20

equipment, has been losing their influence within the RENGO as well as theirmembership as these industries has had more and more difficulty because of high-yen rate,
catching up by other countries, especially China, and high-cost of domestic production.
On the other hand, the CHUSHO unions, especially machine industry which has been
relatively autonomous from subcontracting system, has strengthened their voice as the
CHUSHO sector by merger of rival federations which used to compete for organizing
workers in this industry .29 Similar merge of the CHUSHO federations took place
recently in chemical and service industry.30
Increasing importance of local RENGOs is another structural change in the
RENGO. In fact, local RENGO, in prefecture-level and sub-district-level, has been
expected to lead their joint struggles as the RENGO put a great deal of effort into thebottom-up of the labor conditions of the CHOSHO in SHUNTO.31 The RENGO,
furthermore, has shifted its financial and human resources for organizing campaigns more
and more into these local RENGOs because the DAIKIGYO unions can be no longer
expected as a major organization in increasing membership as before. Thus, while theexecutive committee where the decision making of the RENGO was substantially done
29

They newly created the JAM with about the membership of 460,000, the 4th biggest
federation in the RENGO in 1999.
30
The ZENSEN merged with the CGS in 2000 and they (the name is still the ZENSEN)
became the 3d biggest federation with the membership of about 590,000 in the RENGO.

21

had been composed of only industrial federations, the representatives of ten big
organizations among prefecture RENGO were recently added to the committee.

Is the RENGO joining transpacific social movement unionism?
Given that the social movement unionism is characterized above, especially withemphasis on the two but interconnected points: breaking differentiation in laborde-commodication out and breaking boundaries inside and outside union movement
down, how can we interpret the shifting of the policy line and the structural change of the
RENGO? In order to do it, of course, we still need to examine to what extent the shifted
policy is accomplished and to what extent the organizational change influences on the
power relations in the RENGO. But we can, at least, say that the RENGO is heading
toward the social movement unionism.
So there are another series of questions. For example, is this the first time forJapanese labor movement to head toward the social movement unionism? Why did theleaders of the RENGO shift its policy line despite they were from the DAIKIGYO
unions? How can we relate these changes in the RENGO to their circumstance including
economic globalization and moral hazard during the lost decade?

31

RENGO Hakusho 2001, p.29.

22

Moreover, how similar is the case of the RENGO to ones of the social movement
unionism in Korea, Philippines, the US, and other Pacific-rim countries. How different
are they? How do they influence each other? How does the development of the social
movement unionism in these countries interconnect each other? For example, are they anexpression of workers’ nationalism or internationalism?
These questions will lead us to understand more deeply current situation of thelabor movement in these countries. But, at least, the perspective of the social movement
unionism provides us a window through which we can overview the trend of the labor
movement across the Pacific.