Community Unions in Japan: Similarities and Differences of Region-based Labour Movements between Japan and Other Industrialized Countries

Akira Suzuki
Additional contact information
Akira Suzuki: Ohara Institute for Social Research, Hosei University

Economic and Industrial Democracy, 2008, vol. 29, issue 4, 492-520

Abstract: This article examines organizational characteristics of Japanese community unions and analyses similarities and differences in the organizational forms and activities of community unionism between Japan and other industrialized countries. The article first outlines the conceptual framework of community unionism based on the literature review of studies on cases in the US, Canada, Australia and the UK, and then examines to what extent the framework is applicable to the Japanese case. Although there are some common features, one of the important differences of community unionism between Japan and other industrialized countries is the weakness of coalition-building between community unions and community-based organizations in Japan compared to other countries. The article argues that the forms of community unionism are mediated by civil societal and institutional contexts of labour movements, and that the relative underdevelopment of civil society and industrial relations institutions (liberal union recognition procedures) in Japan explains the difference in the forms.

Keywords: deregulation of industrial relations; trade unions; union organizing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0143831X08096230 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:ecoind:v:29:y:2008:i:4:p:492-520

DOI: 10.1177/0143831X08096230

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Economic and Industrial Democracy from Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().