refers to a labour dispute tactic used in Japan in the period 1945-1950, wherein workers seized control of production at a company and managed its operations themselves to the exclusion of owners and management. It was a form of workers' self management, used as an alternative to strike action.
Production control emerged in October 1945, at the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper. Employees at the newspaper sought to engage in industrial action, while newspaper workers were legally prohibited from striking through work stoppage by the American occupation forces. As an alternative, the union instead locked out their employers and occupied the workplace, continuing business operations themselves. As in a work stoppage strike, instances of production control were accompanied by a set of union demands, such as for increased wages. Until a settlement was reached, workers continued to produce, buy and sell as normal while excluding company management entirely. Upon settlement, occupied premises were returned to the owners.
A controversial tactic, debates over its legality were considered alongside post-war social reforms. The Japanese government under prime minister Yoshida declared it illegal in June 1946 with the support of the American occupation forces, although it remained frequently used into 1947. In 1950, the Supreme Court of Japan ruled in the Yamada Steel case that the tactic was unconstitutional, as it infringed upon the owners' right to private property.
Occupation and use of company property during industrial disputes has occurred outside of this period in Japan and elsewhere, including in factory occupations during the 1919-1920 Biennio Rosso in Italy, but the term "production control" or seisan kanri specifically originated surrounding its use in Japan in the immediate post-Second World War period.
Methods Production control was an industrial dispute tactic in which workers, instead of enacting a work stoppage as in a strike, instead locked out their employers and occupied their workplace, continuing business operations themselves. As in a typical strike, it would be accompanied by a set of union or worker demands. Until a settlement was reached, workers would continue to produce, buy and sell as normal while excluding company management entirely. During production control, workers were usually paid at increased rates out of business receipts, for instance revenue newspaper sales or streetcar fares.
The methods involved in production control are radical, as they involve workers temporarily seizing the means of production (a tenet of communism). However, after a settlement was reached in these disputes, the workplace was reliably turned back to management's control, and legal ownership was not questioned. Historian J. Moore described the tactic as "using revolutionary means for non-revolutionary ends". During these disputes, workers usually self-managed democratically, either under the auspices of a trade union or under a specially organised which operated on the basis of direct democracy.
Most production control struggles, particularly before June 1946, were undertaken with goals such as increased wages, union recognition, and collective bargaining rights. Frequently, workers sought representation on an equitable management council or keiei kyōgikai, having an equal voice with management on key issues affecting the business. Burkett and Hart-Landsberg wrote that "Workers seized control over their enterprises not because they sought to replace management, but to force it to be more responsive."
The legal status of production control was initially ambiguous due to a lack of legislation. Despite this, historian J. Moore termed the aforementioned goals and methods 'legal' production control due to their more moderate nature. More radical forms of the strategy were applied in some cases, and workers resorted to what Moore termed 'illegal' production control when management and other businesses withheld raw materials or payment for goods produced in an attempt to suppress workers. Two key features of 'illegal' production control were its conscious repudiation of the legal limitations of capitalism, and the participants' resort to external allies and resources, criteria reflected in a contemporary legal analysis by American occupying forces.
For instance, in the 'illegal' Tōyō Gōsei production control struggle, workers sold company property to raise funds, formed a mutually beneficial barter agreement with a farmers' association, and transformed the chemical factory with new equipment and even a new product. Some of these more extravagant strategies like transporting and selling company products in the name of the union rather than of the business directly questioned private property rights. Doing this required solidarity from other workers' unions, and workplaces under workers' production control frequently collaborated with each other to enable 'illegal' production control. Moore interpreted these as the beginning of a proletarian revolution, a view shared by a minority of contemporaries; Dower described this use of the strategy as "discredit[ing] the mystique of capitalist relations of production".
Instances of use General trends Generally, production control was used as an alternative to a strike for two key reasons: to maintain employment when layoffs were threatened, and to continue economic activity, neither of which would be accomplished by striking. The second reason was particularly important given the poor economic conditions of Japan in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. In addition, the American occupation forces forbade strikes in a number of industries, so workers resorted to production control as an alternative.
Production control was utilised across industries and across the country, but was particularly popular in Tokyo, and in coal mines in Hokkaido and Kyushu. Several hundred industrial disputes involved production control, but the tactic was not universally successful. Prolonged periods of production control or drastic reactions from employers could raise the risk of failure, in particular posing problems in acquiring raw materials or credit, or reaching markets. In one case, a manufacturing company withdrew all materials from a factory under production control, and in the resulting absence of work the workers' action failed.
Yomiuri Shimbun case Workers at the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper were the first to utilise the strategy of production control in postwar Japan, and popularised the tactic throughout the country.
The newspaper was owned by Matsutarō Shōriki, a conservative who had close ties to the wartime Imperial Japanese state. As a result, workers at Yomiuri during the Second World War were responsible for omitting news unfavourable to the government, and eventually printing falsehoods in support of it. Shōriki endorsed this, and also implemented a highly authoritarian style of personnel management at the newspaper.
After the war's end, in October 1945 employees put together demands for better working conditions and for acceptance of responsibility for the war by company officials, both of which Shōriki rejected. In response, a majority of the 1,875 workers at the newspaper protested for further demands including the resignation of all company officials including Shōriki on the grounds of war guilt, which he rejected, insisting that his authority must be absolute within the company.
The Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, or SCAP, which held ultimate political authority in Japan during the post-war occupation, prohibited newspaper workers from striking due to their important role in promoting Allied policy. In addition, striking risked the closure of the newspaper altogether, which Shōriki preferred to ceding control over it. Unable to strike, and unable to negotiate with Shōriki, the employees sought an alternative, and arrived at the idea of 'production control'. The workers were partly inspired by pre-war examples of French and Italian factory occupations.
On 25 October 1945, workers took over the editing, printing, shipping, and distribution of the Yomiuri Shimbun. They set up a series of democratically elected 'struggle committees' and organised the workplace according to direct participatory democracy. The newspaper under worker control took a progressive editorial stance, becoming the most left-leaning of the major Japanese newspapers. Its daily circulation increased up to nearly 1.7 million copies, and the struggle attracted the support of political parties the Japan Socialist Party and the Japanese Communist Party.
In December, Shōriki was forced into arbitration. On 11 December, the workers and company reached a settlement, whereby Shōriki would resign and sell his controlling stake in the company; a permanent management council would be set up where management and employees were represented equally to consult on key issues; and workers won wage increases, union recognition, and recognition of collective bargaining rights. An editorial in the newspaper the next day declared that "the Yomiuri Shimbun has been freed from this yoke of capital".
Control was handed back from workers to management after this point, but employees continued to dominate the newspaper through the union and the management council. During the struggle and afterwards, the newspaper's articles actively promoted the tactic of production control in their newspaper editorials, and supported other workers in their struggles, leading to the spread of the strategy to numerous other workplaces.
Keisei Dentetsu case Following the example of the Yomiuri workers, another major instance of production control took place when workers took over the Keisei Dentetsu railway in December 1945. Around 2,500 workers demanded recognition of collective bargaining, a five-times wage increase, shorter working hours, resignation of some key management officers, and establishment of a joint management council with workers on. Workers initially ran the railway for free for four days when they began occupation on 11 December 1945. Management conceded to all of their demands on 29 December 1945.
"People's Court" incident One of the more 'extreme' cases was the incident of February 1946, where workers not only occupied their workplace but constituted themselves a war crimes tribunal for their employers.
In January 1946, the owners of the Mitsubishi coal mines in the city of Bibai in Hokkaido decided to unilaterally reduce pay to a new basic standard recommended by the government. The miners' union made a series of demands which were rejected by the company, and in February the union resorted to production control. Similarly to other instances of production control, the productivity and output of the Mitsubishi Bibai coal mines increased substantially under worker control. Another typicality was the fact that, inspired by the aims of the Yomiuri workers, one of the union's key demands had been inclusion in management.
After the company completely stopped negotiations, the workers took a radical step on 17 February 1946. A group of several hundred union members sought out the general manager and his deputy, and forcibly marched them through kilometres of snow to a meeting hall to restart negotiations. Miners and their families attended the 'mass negotiations', which lasted thirty-six consecutive hours. In what became known as the 'People's Court' incident, the frustrated workers and their families also tried their employers as war criminals, verbally abusing company officials until they eventually relented.