Japanese State and Labor Relations in an Era of Neoliberal Reform Changing the Social Contract

Date of Award

2003

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Tegtmeyer-Pak, Katherine

Keywords

Japan, Labor Unions, Japanese Politics, Social Contract

Area of Concentration

Political Science

Abstract

In the 1950s and 1960s, the Japanese state and labor established a social contract wherein the state guaranteed high wages, job security and in return labor promised high productivity. This relationship underlay both the political stability of the 1955 System and Japanese high economic growth and prosperity. The neoliberal reform of the 1980s represented one of the Japanese state's first attempts to upset this social contract. The privatization movement promulgated by the Nakasone government, in particular, transformed the relationship between labor and the state. This study examines the origins and effect of this shift, focusing on the privatization of the Japanese National Railways. It illustrates precisely how the state/labor relationship was altered, examining the radical shift in the power and politics of the JNR unions resulting from privatization, and the subsequent realignments in the Japanese labor movement as a whole.

Rights

This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.

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