As fate would have it, soon after the resumption of production in May, all four factories of Kanagawa, Kyoto, Sendai, and Okayama joined together to form the Hinode Labor Union. The inaugural gathering of labor and management, with even the executives from company headquarters in attendance along with the managers of each factory, took place in a conciliatory mood from start to finish. Seen from the perspective of employees of other companies who could only declare a strike as a societal weapon of laborers against managers who executed one-sided layoffs—and though employee cutbacks at places like Japanese National Railways were excessive—one could argue that the brewery business, long considered an industry for national policy used to collect liquor taxes and operating more or less as an oligopoly or monopoly, had little to worry about. But I am not interested in having such a debate here.
When it comes down to it, the question is: Even though unions were formed in other companies within the same industry at around the same time, why did none of them, Hinode included, incite an actual conflict until that fateful day of February 1st? As far as I can tell, it wasn’t so much that there was no need for conflict but that those unions were organized as a token effort by the company itself, in order to present the appearance of democratic management style as instructed by the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers at General Headquarters. And as for the employees, the mentality of “No Hinode, No Employees” had been fully ingrained into them as well. Perhaps this deserves to be called a new type of industrial patriotic association.
Now, we are getting a little closer to the heart of the matter. While casting a sidelong glance at the deluge of labor disputes arising in the streets, the Kanawaga factory had been bustling with activity since the partial resumption of operations last spring. However, it only appeared this way to those working at the site, myself included. In reality, as long as beer remained under the Price Control Ordinance and with no prospect of a quick recovery of a demand in sales, even a child could figure out the quantity we could actually produce. Looking at the numbers for output that were released every month, it was clear that there would soon be a surplus of equipment and manpower. However, at the same time, all of us working on site had thought that everything would be fine as long as we could make it through the low-demand season of October through March of the following year, and we had heard that last September this sentiment had been echoed by the company and the union. However, as you very well know, once November arrived, the provisional solicitation for voluntary resignation began suddenly. It is laughable that rather than a firing or restructuring they chose to call it a “Recommendation for Resignation.”
There is no use debating whether the only two valid choices for the company were either to allow excess labor costs to bankrupt the company, leaving all 270 members of the Kanagawa factory out in the cold, or to use cutbacks to save the remaining employees. As an employee, I can only trust that, given current management, the company and the union came to an agreement after undergoing serious discussions. That is to say further, this has always been the tradition of Hinode, a company that has been in business for fifty years. At Hinode, a labor dispute is unthinkable.
Implementation of the “Recommendations for Resignation” was led by the union, and private interviews with each employee took place as needed. As is well-known, by the end of this past February, a total of forty members silently left the factory with money in hand, each of them citing a family issue, an illness, or a vague reason for not being able to stay. Some voiced anger or resentment but since there were rumors of a second and third round of cutbacks soon, I believe the majority of employees, if they were to meet a dead-end anyway, thought that it would be better to give up while conditions were still favorable. As for me, in addition to not having much strength after contracting malaria overseas, there was also the diagnosis of a nervous breakdown from my doctor, so I decided not to cause any nuisance. However, until this day I had no idea that while such reasonable discharges were taking place, there were a number of men who were released without receiving equal treatment, despite being Hinode employees.
According to the self-proclaimed Communist member I mentioned above, last October three employees at the Kyoto factory, in the face of Hinode’s policy against labor unions, instigated a rally where they demanded participation with the unified dispute that was being led by the All Japan Congress of Industrial Unions, and called for the abolishment of the Price Control Ordinance on perishable food items. Citing a breach of their employee agreement, the company promptly fired the three men at the end of the year. I suspect the reason I do not remember hearing about any sort of dispute in Kyoto back then is because those three men’s actions were either too subtle to be noticed or because they ended in failure. Nevertheless, why did such firings take place, why did none of the other employees know about it, and why didn’t the labor union cause even a stir?
Whenever I reflect on this, I look at my hands and wonder anew what exactly the pride and solidarity of the Hinode employees had meant. “No Hinode, No Employees”—when it comes down to it, did that mentality mean that we must enjoy spinning around as cogs in the company wheel, ignore minor differences of opinion to dream of prosperity under the aegis of the company, and forget about our individual poverty? This must be so because, indisputably, each and every Japanese is as poor as ever. Considering this, I cannot help
