The  was a year-long struggle in Japan in 1960 between the organized labor movement, backed by a variety of left wing groups, and big business organizations, backed by the Japanese right, centering around a lengthy labor dispute at the Mitsui Miike Coal Mine on the west coast of Kyushu in southern Japan. Occurring at the climax of a long series of escalating strikes and other militant labor actions in 1950s Japan, the Miike Struggle was the largest labor-management dispute in Japanese history. Ultimately, the labor movement in Japan was defeated at Miike, dealing a significant blow to its prospects going forward.

Background
The Miike Coal Mine in northern Kyushu had long been one of Japan's largest and most productive coal mines, dating back to its earliest exploitation by the Tachibana samurai clan in the early 1700s during the Edo Period. The mine was nationalized by the Meiji government in 1873, and was privatized and sold to the Mitsui zaibatsu in 1889.

Like all other industrialized nations, Japan and its wartime empire had been largely powered by coal. This made the Miike mine immensely profitable and one of the crown jewels of the Mitsui conglomerate's holdings. However, in the immediate postwar years, the discovery and exploitation of cheap and plentiful Middle Eastern oil led to an "energy revolution" as industries increasingly shifted to oil, reducing demand for coal. At the same time, the 1950s in Japan saw a great wave of mechanization and "workplace rationalization" that saw a reduction in demand for large numbers of manual laborers, including coal miners. In addition, the Income Doubling Plan, first formulated in 1959 and formally introduced in 1960, explicitly called for shifting government support away from "sunset" industries like coal mining in favor of "growth" industries such as oil refining and petrochemical manufacturing.

Origins of the Dispute

Noticing these shifts and anticipating future threats to the profitability of its coal mines, the Mitsui Corporation in 1959 announced that it would be laying off thousands of workers at its mines, including 1,462 layoffs at the Miike mine. With mechanization of mine functions proceeding at a rapid pace, this was seen to be the first in what might be many future rounds of layoffs. The Miike miners union was incredibly strong, and responded with massive protests and work stoppages by more than 30,000 miners and their families.

Mitsui decided to take the opportunity to break the powerful and militant Miike union once and for all. The Union was associated with the powerful, left-leaning Sōhyō labor federation, and had long been a thorn in Miike's side, launching several workplace actions including undertaking a major strike in 1953. On January 25, 1960, Mitsui locked the miners out of the mine, and immediately launched a concerted effort to split off some of the miners to form a more pliable "second union" and resume production at the mine.

The Struggle Escalates

Although Miike was a very large mine, and the Miike union was an important union within the Sōhyō federation, the Miike Struggle quickly escalated far out of proportion to the actual number of jobs at stake, as both sides decided that Miike would be the time and place to make a decisive stand. Donations began pouring into the Miike miners union not just from other Sōhyō-affiliated unions, but even from unions in more moderate labor federations, such as Zenrō, and from labor unions and federations in the United States and Europe. Likewise, the Japanese business world (Zaikai) made virtually unlimited financial resources available to Mitsui for the purpose of breaking the strike, including contributions from corporations and industries entirely unrelated to coal mining. Accordingly, the conflict rapidly assumed the feeling of an apocalyptic “all-management vs. all-labor” battle (sōshihon tai sōrōdō no tatakai) from which neither side felt it could back down.

Much of these funds were used to hire thousands of right-wing and yakuza thugs to beat up or otherwise intimidate and harass the locked-out miners. Bloody battles for control of the mine became an almost daily occurrence, especially after Mitsui finally succeeded in persuading some of the miners to form a second union on March 17. On March 29, one of the first-union miners, Kiyoshi Kubo, was stabbed to death by a yakuza gangster.

Because the striking first-union miners were blocking access to the mine by land, Mitsui attempted to land second-union miners and mining supplies by boat from the sea. The first union responded by chartering a boat of its own and constantly shadowing the company's boat while attacking it with water cannons, hurled rocks, and ramming, in the so-called "Battle of the Ariake Sea."

Further Escalation
By May, with desertions to the second union increasing, the first union's cause was looking increasingly hopeless and support from the other unions began to waver. However on May 19, Japanese Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi had police drag opposition lawmakers out of the National Diet and rammed through an unpopular revision to the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty (called "Anpo" in Japanese) with only members of his own party present. Kishi's actions led to outrage around the nation and a massive upsurge in the Anpo protests against the Treaty. Sympathy was extended to the striking miners, whom Kishi had opposed, and the Japanese labor movement became enamored of the idea of possibly "linking up Anpo and Miike," leading to a new surge in support for the striking miners.

Once the new treaty took effect on June 19, the Anpo protests came to an end, freeing up thousands of left-wing activists who had previously been busy protesting the treaty. Many of these activists then travelled down to Kyushu to support the miners at Miike. However, the end of the Anpo protests also freed up thousands of right-wing counter-protesters as well, who also traveled to Miike to fight for the other side, leading to a dramatic upsurge in violent clashes in late June and July. Big business was growing tired of funding the endless conflict, and pressure mounted on Kishi to bring the strike to an end, so he dispatched 10,000 riot police to quell the violence, and a decisive battle (kessen) between the police and the miners seemed imminent. However, Kishi was forced to resign on July 15 to take responsibility for his mishandling of the treaty issue, leading to a pause in strikebreaking operations at Miike.

Resolution
New Prime Minister Hayato Ikeda, a former member of the Ministry of Finance and a close ally of the business world, made finding a peaceful resolution to the strike his first priority upon taking office. To accomplish this, he took the very unusual step of appointing a member of a rival faction within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, Hirohide Ishida, as Labor Minister, because Ishida was seen as more sympathetic to labor unions, and dispatched Ishida to negotiate a solution.

With both the business world and the labor movement having become exhausted by the lengthy battle, Ishida was successful in getting both sides to submit to binding arbitration by the Central Labour Relations Commission (CLRC). The miners calculated that they had showed their determination, and that they could always go on strike again, and thus that the CLRC would have to grant them some concessions. However, when the CLRC issued its decision on August 10, it sided almost entirely with Mitsui, granting the miners the rather meaningless gesture of having the company formally "rescind" the layoffs while still insisting that those same miners "voluntarily retire."

The first union was outraged and immediately announced a resumption of their strike, but after weeks of debate the Sōhyō labor federation announced that it was withdrawing its support for the strike. Completely isolated, the first union held on for a little longer but was ultimately forced to capitulate. On December 1, 1960, the first union-miners returned to work, ending an unprecedented 312-day lockout.

Legacy
The Miike Struggle is widely regarded as the high point of postwar labor militancy in Japan, when the Japanese labor movement was at the height of its power. After the labor movement was defeated at Miike, it gradually retreated from militancy, leading to a more cooperative culture with more open lines of communication between management and labor in Japan. Sōhyō in particular was weakened by the Miike Struggle, and thereafter increasingly lost ground to more moderate labor federations such as Zenrō.

Mitsui's near-total victory in the Miike Struggle allowed the company to replace the militant first union with the much more cooperative second union. This in turn allowed Mitsui to lay off more miners and significantly relax safety standards in the mine. By 1963, the number of miners working at Miike had fallen by one third, from around 15,000 in 1960 to just 10,000, yet in the same period, coal production was accelerated from 8,000 tons to 15,000 tons per day. On November 9, 1963, the worst mining disaster in Japan's postwar era occurred at Miike when coal dust ignited and exploded 500 feet below the surface, collapsing tunnels and spreading deadly carbon monoxide throughout the mine. As a result, 458 miners were killed and 555 were injured.

References

Further reading

Labour movement in Japan
Labor disputes in Japan
1959 labor disputes and strikes
1960 labor disputes and strikes
1960s in Japan
1960 in Japan
Mitsui
Miners' labor disputes
미쓰이 미이케 쟁의()는 일본 미쓰이광산주식회사의 미이케 탄광에서 발생한 노동쟁의를 가리킨다. 1953년과 1959년 ~ 1960년 두차례에 걸쳐 발생했지만, 일반적으로 후자만을 지칭한다. 줄여서 미이케 투쟁이라고도 한다.

사건의 진행

사건의 발단 
후쿠오카현 오무타시에서 구마모토현 아라오시에 걸쳐 분포한 미쓰이 광산 계열의 탄광에서, 태평양 전쟁이 끝나고 난 뒤 연합군 최고사령부의 민주화 정책에 따라 1946년에 노동조합이 결성되었다. 하지만 미이케 탄광 노조는 노사 협조파의 힘이 강했고, 노동 쟁의에는 소극적인 조합이었다.

그러나 1947년경부터 오무타 시 출신으로 미이케 탄광과도 연고가 깊은 규슈대학 교수 사키사카 이츠로가 자주 방문해, 사키사카교실이라는 이름의 노동자 학교를 열어 《자본론》 등을 강의하면서 노조의 성격이 변화했다. 사키사카는 미이케 탄광을, 곧 도래할 사회주의 혁명의 거점으로 인식하고, 자본론을 통해 전투적 활동가를 육성할 계획을 세우고 있었던 것이다.

1953년 파업 
노동 쟁의의 확대로 위기감을 인식하고, 전과는 달리 억제를 계획하고 있던 연합군의 점령도 끝난 1953년경부터 에너지원이 석탄에서 석유로 변화해 석탄 수요가 침체를 보이기 시작했다. 미쓰이 광산은 경영 합리화를 위해 희망퇴직을 모집했지만, 지원자가 저조했으므로 3464명에게 퇴직을 권고하고, 거부한 2700명을 지명 해고했다. 이러한 조치에 반발한 탄광의 광부와 사무직 노동자가 함께 파업에 돌입했다. 파업은 113일 동안 진행되어, 마침내 회사측이 지명해고를 철회해 노동자의 승리로 종결되었다. 이 파업은 당시 ‘영웅 없는 113일간의 투쟁’이라고 불리며, 미이케 노조의 이름을 드높였다.

탄광 노동자의 자치구 
1953년의 파업으로 미이케 노조에서는 노사협조파의 발언력이 약해져, 사키사카가 육성한 하이바라 시게오 중심의 활동가들이 전면으로 나서게 되었다. 미이케 노조는 이어 1955년에는 노동자가 퇴직했을 때에는 반드시 그 자녀를 채용하는 것을 미쓰이 광산측에 약속시켰다. 또한 노동자 자신들이 각 노동자의 수입을 평균화하기 위해, 비교적 좋은 일과 나쁜 일을 교대로 맡는 윤번제를 도입하는 등, 미이케 탄광은 마치 노동자의 자치구와 같은 양상을 띠게 되었다.

하지만 1953년의 파업 성공에 의해 일부의 탄광 노동자는 오만에 빠져, 사무직 노동자를 부리거나 괴롭히기도 해 점차 사무직원들의 연대의식은 엷어지기 시작했다.

1959 ~ 60년 파업 
1953년 파업 이후 미쓰이 광산의 경영은 더욱 악화되어 갔다. 결국 미쓰이 광산은 미이케 탄광에서 노동 운동가의 일소를 결의하고, 1959년 1월 19일에 6000명의 희망퇴직을 포함한 회사 재건안을 제시했다. 이어 8월 29일에는 4580명의 감축안을 발표하고, 12월 2일과 12월 3일에 걸쳐 1492명에게 퇴직을 권고하고, 거부한 1278명을 지명해고 했다.

미쓰이 노조측은 이 조치에 반발해 무기한 파업을 결정했다. 한편 회사측도 경영 재건의 결의가 견고해 직장 폐쇄를 시행하고, 조합원의 갱내 출입을 저지하면서 이에 대항했다. 재계는 미쓰이 광산을 전면 지지했으며, 총평은 미이케 노조측을 전면적으로 지원했으므로, 미쓰이 미이케 노조는 ‘총자본 대 총노동의 대결’이라고도 불렸다. 하지만 총노동이라고 칭해도, 사무직 노동자는 이 파업에 참여하지 않았다.

파업은 장기화되어 총평의 지원 이외에는 수입이 없는 조합원들의 생활은 악화되어 갔다. 결국 생활고를 견디지 못한 일부 조합원은 1960년 3월 17일, 제2조합(미이케 신노(新勞))을 결성하고 파업에서 이탈한다. 3월 25일에는 피켓을 들고 있던 미이케 노조의 조합원 구보 기요시가 폭력단원에게 찔려 사망하는 사태가 발생했다.

이러한 사건들이 연달아 일어나면서, 미이케 노조의 조합원 중 반정도가 미이케 신노에 참여해 파업에서 이탈했다. 7월 7일에는 후쿠오카 지방법원이 노조 조합원의 저탄장 출입금지 가처분 신청을 받아들이면서, 후쿠오카 경찰은 저탄장을 점거한 미이케 노조 조합원을 제지하기 위해 경관대를 출동시켜 저탄장 주변은 일촉즉발의 상태가 되었다. 이에 유혈참사를 우려한 일본탄광노동조합과 미이케 광산은 중앙노동위원회에 해결을 요청했다.

8월 10일, 중앙노동위원회는 알선안을 발표했다. 그 내용은 회사가 지명해고를 취소하는 대신에 정리기간이 종료할 때까지 기다리고, 지명해고된 노동자는 자연스럽게 퇴직한다고 간주한다는 것으로, 노조측에 압도적으로 불리한 것이었다. 그러나 이미 한계에 다다랐다고 인식한 탄광노동조합과 총평은 알선안 수락을 결정하고, 사키사카도 미이케 노조 간부가 알선안을 수락하도록 설득했다. 결국 미이케 노조는 11월 11일, 무기한 파업을 해제하고, 미쓰이 미이케 쟁의는 노동조합의 패배로 막을 내렸다.

사키사카는 이후에도 미쓰이 미이케 쟁의를 신성화했지만, 민간기업에서는 노사협조파가 대두하고, 노사대결파 조합원은 소수파가 되어갔다. 또한 미이케 노조를 지원·지도했던 일본사회당이나 사회주의협회 내에서도 종래의 대결형 정치를 반성하는 구조개혁론이 일어나기 시작했다.

외부 링크 

  색다른 사람으로부터의 통신

1959년 일본
광업 노동쟁의
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