Japan's Labor Movement and Labor Video

AKIRA Matsubara

(Video Press)

1. The situation of Japan's labor movement

Only 22 % of Japanese workers are unionized and the unionization ratio has been decreasing for these 17 consecutive years. In big companies with a thousand workers or more, the ratio is 57 %, but it is only 1.5 % in smaller businesses hiring less than a hundred. Half of the Japanese workers are working in such small companies, so the majority of them virtually have no rights.

The reason of the decreasing number of union members is full time workforce cut and more part time workers hired.

$B!!(BThe Japanese economy has been under the worst situation since the end of World War II. The "Industry Recovery Law" came into force on October 1 to encourage 'restructuring' by the monopolistic capital.

$B!!(BThe most symbolic event was the annoucement by Nissan to close down five factories and to slash its workforce by 21,000. Other examples are NTT (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone) cutting 20,000, Sumitomo and Sakura Banks cutting 9,500, and Mitsubishi Motors cutting 10,000. Thus, big businesses are competing to lay off workers. $B!!(BRengo, Japan's national center of trade unions, never tries to fightback. Sohyo, which used to represent Japan's unions and the voices ofunion members, was disbanded in 1989 and replaced by Rengo. Since then, Japan's labor movement has completely been weakened. $B!!(BHowever, there has been stronger criticism towards Rengo due to the very negative situation surrounding workers in Japan. New moves have emerged to confront this difficulty. One of such examples is Zenrokyo, which is a small national center with a membership of 300,000 but has been trying hard for alternative ways. It includes Kokuro, having fought against the mass firing of the members for 12 years, and smaller unions like the "Unemployed' Union" which was newly born last month.

Japan's labor movement has managed to deviate from its conventionalism and is going to revive.

2. About the independent media.

Japan's independent media movement has been more and more active. The "People's Media Network" is one of the centerpieces of the movement and consists of 350 people. A project group called the "Video Act !" derived from the network as a trial to distribute only independent videos.

43 Independent video production groups and individuals have joined the VIDEO ACT !. We made 20,000 copies of the video catalog introducing 118 works. There are a wide range of topics in them, such as anti-war and peace, human rights, and the environment. However, only a few groups have picked up the labor issue so far.

The independent video activities have remarkably improved since the start of the VIDEO ACT !. In the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival of last month, we had a special event for 2 days with the title "Video Activism in Japan and Korea", joined by many Korean activists. Our activities have been centered in Tokyo so far, but a new network of the independent media will begin also in Osaka at the end of this month.

Thus, the existence of independent videos and the media has gradually been recognized.

3. About labor videos

The media exists wherever a struggle continues. The opposite is also true. This is because the independent media production is not very active in the field of the labor issue. Japan's labor movement is hindered by the bureaucracy in trade unions. To be worse, it is shouldered by the middle-aged and the elderly who are not good at using the new media.

However, there have been some changes.

$B!!(BOne of them can be seen in the Tokyo Tobu Roso (Tokyo Eastern Union), which is a regional union of 700 individual members. It has 30 locals. It started consultation about the labor issue by the Internet for the first time in Japan in 1996. The number of access to its web page reached 17,000 and that of direct consultations was 1,400 last year. Thanks to the Internet, unions were formed in many places and the membership has dramatically increased.

There, the union members have been using videos to take their own struggles, but they have only been able to use their works within the unions.

$B!!(BA video titled "How to Create a Labor Union - Our Reply to Dismissal", produced by the Video Press, is based on video tapes taken by Tokyo Tobu Roso members. This is a very precious example of the cooperation between union members and an independent video group. The Zenrokyo funded the production of this video for the first time.

$B!!(BIn Japan, videos have been and will be shown by the use of projectors in meetings and among study groups.

The only labor videos in Japan have been about "karoshi", or death of overwork, and the firing of Kokuro workers. But more and more works will be produced about the labor issue in conjunction with the improvement of the labor movement in alternative ways, and we would like to contribute ourselves to encouraging such moves.

$B!!(BFortunately, more Zenrokyo members are motivated to utilize videos. We would like to get more people involved in the video shooting and production in Japan's workplaces. In this respect, we have many things to learn from overseas groups, such as the Labor News Production in Korea.