Why Do Japanese Labor Unions Matter? Toru Shinoda (Waseda University)

Professor Toru Shinoda (Political Science, Waseda University, Tokyo) asks “What can we learn from the history and present of organized labor in Japan?” He traces the remarkable growth of progressive labor unions in the decades after World War II through their transformation under deregulation policies of conservative governments over the past 70 years. Japan was long considered among the most egalitarian of industrialized countries. What role does organized labor play as the gap between rich and poor widens?

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