Social Movement Unionism in Contemporary Japan: Community Unions' Response to Economic Crisis

The economic crisis in 2008 has affected many workers in Japan, especially the agency temporaries and fixed-term contract workers who were working in the export-oriented manufacturing industry. In response to a series of mass dismissal in a very short time, community unions that organize nonstandard workers emerged as an alternative to the mainstream enterprise unions, organizing demonstrations and holding rallies to advocate the workers' rights while pressuring the government for stronger legal-institutional regulation. This paper builds on studies that use social movement unionism as a theoretical concept to analyze labor movements by the marginalized workers in both Western European and East Asian societies. Existing studies argue that the sociopolitical impact of social movement unionism in Japan is limited due to the absence of coalitions with civil societies, in addition to the loose, personal ties that bind union activists. Based on unique data gathered from participant observation of community union activism from 2008 to 2009, in addition to a series of interviews to labor activists between 2009 to 2015, this paper demonstrates that the particular form of social movement unionism practiced in contemporary Japan is patterned in three ways: Coalition-building is mostly limited to labor unions; Web of connections within labor factions are dense yet limited across factions; Emerging few community unions are seeking to bridge historical divisions among labor while reaching out to civil societies, yet coalitions mostly remain ad hoc. This paper argues that the active networks among labor serve to both enable and constrain their movement activities. Community unions that seek to build coalitions across fissures are struggling to manage both cultural and political obstacles that hinder the formation of a deep coalition.