_ THE JAPANESE LABOR MOVEMENT
REACHES A TURNING POINT
By S. Okatani
There are many indications that the Japanese labor movement has reached a turning point. Among the signs are the recent changes in the top hierarchy of the big unions and the changes in their policies and roles as they begin to grapple with the process of rationalization and automation that has swept Japanese industry in the past few years. Differences over how to deal with the . problems that have arisen are touching off sharp debate and discussion in all the working-class organizations. The purpose of this article is to indicate the causes and background of the present ferment.
The ouster of the chairmen of the two big federations at their respective national conferences at the end of July is only one manifestation of the change. Kaoru Ohta, chairman of Soyho, the largest federation and also the one Standing farthest to the left, was forced to resign after eight years in office. His successor, significantly enough, is Toshikatsu Horii, chairman of the National Federation of Railway Workers. Horii won due to the support of one of the more right-wing Soyho leaders, Fumihiko Takaragi, head of the Postal Workers union.
Yukich Takehama was forced to withdraw as chairman of the large Neutral Federation of Trade Unions when he lost the leadership in his-own union, the National Federation of Electrical Machinery Workers. Takehama's defeat was the result of a major shift in his federation. The Neutral Federation, which until recently was aligned with Soyho, switched and is now supporting the more rightist federation, the General Union of Trade Unions, the second largest in Japan. .
These changes in the top posts seem to show, at first sight, that a general shift to the right has occurred in the Japanese labor movement; but they should be assessed against the background of a remarkable upsurge in the working class, with an increasing number of workers going: into struggle, with the struggles intensifying, with leadership in,the struggles shifting more and more toward the youth, and with.the workers movement going so far as to prepare strike action against the war in Vietnam.
In every. political group in the country, a major topic of discussion is the course of the Japanese working class and its meaning for the future. The new splits, the regroupments, the apparent confusion should be viewed as part of the phenomena necessarily to be expected at a major turning point in any mass movement.
1.