year, the findings cannot be related to the cost data shown in the table on page 45, which is based on estimates of construction costs of 1-family houses started during the entire year October 1946-September 1947.

The Labor Boss System in Japan1

THE CONTRACT LABOR SYSTEM in Japan, which covered about 3 million unskilled workers at the lowest rung of the industrial scale, employed under terms and living conditions controlled by labor "bosses" (labor contractors 2) at the beginning of the Occupation in September 1945, has been dealt with in a series of recent enactments designed ultimately to eliminate this practice.

In the pattern for democracy established by the new Japanese Constitution of May 3, 1947, article 22 asserts the right of every citizen to choose and change employment at will.

In contrast, whenever workers are supplied by labor bosses they are deprived of their liberties. They are not free to quit their jobs nor to seek new employment by their own efforts. In addition they are unorganized, and therefore without the means for bargaining for higher wages or better working conditions. The bosses have realized as high as 30 percent of the total earnings of their charges, by withholding part of their wages, and have thereby achieved great personal wealth and political power. In some instances, workers actually have been enslaved and confined after working hours in prison-like barracks and murdered if they attempted to escape.

At the beginning of the Occupation, over a fifth of the 14 million industrial workers of Japan were under the control of labor bosses. Twothirds were in construction, where about 90 percent of the total work force was boss-controlled. The remainder were mostly in manufacturing industries, where labor suppliers contracted with plants to furnish the unskilled laborers for work

1 By Chester W. Hepler, Chief of Labor Division, Economic and Scientific Section, Supreme Command of the Allied Powers, Tokyo, Japan.

A labor boss in Japan is a contractor who in essence supplies nothing more than a work force, which remains completely under his control. The nearest parallel in United States history was the padrone.

not performed by the regular workers. In many establishments they constituted as high as 25 percent of total employment.

An investigation, made by military government officers in the coal fields in Hokkaido a year after the Occupation had begun, disclosed the continued practice of slave labor on a large scale. Some 3,000 laborers, many of whom had been shanghaied after being plied with liquor, were confined in prison barracks at night and driven to work in the coal mines during the day. (These workers were ultimately released and their jailers prosecuted and imprisoned.)

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Even when this extreme condition does not exist, the treatment of boss-controlled workers is far below the standards of the poorest class of free worker in Japan. In December 1947, representatives of the Supreme Command of the Allied Powers visited the dormitories occupied by contract workers employed in coal mines in Hokkaido and were made physically ill by conditions which they found at that late date. They reported that the workers were crowded together into hovels with less consideration than would be accorded animals. The Japanese guides accompanying the representatives wore gauze masks inside the dormitories because of revolting unsanitary conditions.

In November 1947, the Japanese Diet further implemented the general constitutional provision which asserted the right of every citizen to choose and change employment at will. Two significant articles were inserted in the Employment Security Law and made fully effective on March 1, 1948. These provided for the establishment of a free and democratic public employment exchange system based on the standards of the ILO:

Article 44: No person, organization or agency, governmental or private, shall be allowed to conduct a labor supply project or to use labor supplied by such a project, except as provided in article 45.

Article 45: A bona fide labor union as determined by the statutory agencies of the national government may conduct a labor supply project limited for which no compensation shall be made by [an] employer to its own members, provided it obtains permission from the Labor Minister.

Immediately upon passage of the law, powerful groups with a vested interest in perpetuating the labor-boss system began to bring pressure upon

3 Data from various official military government reports.

'Italicized words added by an amendment to strengthen the law which became effective June 30, 1948.

the Government to have their particular activities exempted from the provisions of the act or to obtain an indefinite delay in compliance, urging that production of goods and Occupation Force projects would be hampered by the system's elimination. Among other reasons advanced was the claim that bosses were respected members of the community and would be deprived of their livelihood if the law was fully enforced. In other cases, evasion of the law was sought by disguising operations, principally as "legitimate subcontracting."

Thereupon the Labor Ministry, which was given the responsibility of administering the law, implemented the provisions of articles 44 and 45 by ordinances which strictly defined an operator of a labor-supply project.

Any person who supplies workers to others, whether or not a contract is known to exist, unless that person does all of the following: (1) Takes full financial and legal responsibility as an enterpriser for the completion of a particular project; (2) performs on-the-job supervision of the laborers; (3) assumes full legal obligation as an employer with respect to workers as prescribed by law; (4) provides necessary machinery, equipment (excluding simple tools of the trade), materials or necessary planning and technique.

The passage of a law and the issuance of ordinances are but first steps in the process of eliminating labor bosses. Although the Employment Security Bureau, through the local public employment security offices, has attacked the enforcement of the law and ordinances with vigor, latest reports indicate that not more than 30 percent of all workers under the control of illegal labor suppliers have been freed from this tie. The construction and shipbuilding industries still have large numbers of boss-controlled workers; the Employment Security Bureau will shortly proceeds legally against the bosses in these industries which have heretofore ignored the provisions of the law. The results achieved in industrial plants, in coal mines, and with building contractors who have complied are encouraging. Numerous reports received by the Labor Ministry indicate that the workers are happier, that they have received 30to 40-percent pay increases immediately upon release from the labor bosses, and that, as a result, they are turning out more and better work.

• Information as of October 1948.-Editor.

Production has risen in many instances, and bot employers and workers are enthusiastic about th new arrangement.

Traditional Roots of Japanese Labor

The continued existence, however, of a cast consciousness among the skilled, regular worl force toward former boss-controlled employees has created additional problems in completely eliminating the labor-boss system. Plant unions are reluctant to accept these temporary worker into their organizations, although many have been employed on the same job in the same estab lishment for a long time. The new union movement in Japan, with little or no experience in the use of strikebreakers by employers, continues to cling to the much older caste feelings toward these boss-controlled workers. In many cases, employees who formerly were boss-controlled are being placed on the employer's pay roll in a temporary status and are left under the direction of the former labor boss, who now holds the position of foreman. Strict company regulations with respect to hiring specifications are being used by employers as a pretext for not integrating such workers into the regular labor force.

The Japanese labor-boss system is merely an extension of the social patterns of age-old rural feudalism, with its paternalistic landlord-tenant relationship, projected into the industrial world in a relatively pure form. It has resulted from the one-step change by which Japan was converted from a family-type feudalistic rural economy to one with a high degree of industrialization-a change too rapid to permit development of a new pattern of human relationship in the new economic structure. Under it the more capable ex-farmers became skilled workers, attached to a new family system headed by the industrial employer. The least capable of farm workers assigned to menial tasks were not permitted entry into this socially superior family, but were forced to fall back upon the traditional feudal pattern to which they were accustomed on the land-a parent-child relationship by which the workers sacrificed their freedom to a boss (oyabun) in exchange for the protection and security he presumably offered. In the case of the Japanese unskilled worker, the system seemed to have many advantages. Theoretically at least, bosses provided food, clothing, shelter,

protection from an autocratic police system, medical care for the worker and family, and special allowances and gifts on the occasions of births and deaths; in return for these, only complete obedience and an exorbitant labor profit were exacted. The system was not only condoned in Japan before and during the war years, but was considered ideal-in a nation where sustenance. for all but a favored few has been at a mere subsistence level-even by many who were its sorriest victims. More recently, in a struggle to maintain their position, the bosses have been inclined to indulge in more abuses than when the system was secure and socially acceptable.

Postwar Labor Movement in Italy1

AT LEAST 7 MILLION WORKERS in Italy today belong to labor unions. They constitute less than half of the total labor force in Italy, recently estimated at almost 19 millions. The labor force includes substantial numbers of professional workers and self-employed persons not generally organized within labor unions of countries like the United States. Many of these persons traditionally belong to the Italian trade-union movement-categories such as tax collectors, tenant farmers, university instructors, and persons drawing pensions.

The Communist-dominated Italian General Confederation of Labor (Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro-CGIL) is the largest of the several labor confederations in Italy today. During most of the postwar period the CGIL has included in its membership the overwhelming majority of trade-union organizations.

During the summer and fall of 1948 the CGIL's virtual monopoly of the labor movement was challenged. In August the 11 top Christian Democratic trade-union leaders on the CGIL's administrative bodies announced their withdrawal from the organization and the following October the establishment of a rival labor confederation, the Free Italian General Confederation of Workers

Prepared by Jane H. Palmer of the Bureau's Office of Foreign Labor Conditions.

(Libera Confederazione Generale Italiana dei Lavoratori-LCGIL) was announced.

The CGIL and the LCGIL are the most important trade-union confederations. In addition, there are numerous smaller national trade-union organizations which have in the past maintained their independence of the CGIL for ideological reasons.2

Italian General Confederation of Labor (CGIL)

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The CGIL was formed in the summer of 1944, shortly before the liberation of northern Italy. It was organized by Christian-Democratic (Catholic) and Socialist labor leaders, and by Communist labor leaders who, during the last days of the Fascist regime, had gained substantial support within the labor movement and aligned themselves with the Socialist labor movement.

CGIL membership has been variously reported: in July 1948 (before the split) a membership of 3.5 million was estimated and in October 1948 (after the split) a membership of 6 million was claimed by CGIL officials. The discrepancy is due at least in part to the fact that the smaller figure relates only to dues-paying members and the larger figure represents registrations at provincial labor chambers where the various political groups in control could "buy in" for a few lire per membership card the number of votes needed to maintain control. During the period intervening between these estimates there was unquestionably a decline in CGIL total membership because of the split.

In contrast to the labor confederations of preFascist Italy, the CGIL was established as a union of all workers, irrespective of political and reli

These confederations include the following:

National Federation of Independent Farmers (Federazione Nazionale dei Coltiratori Diretti)

Italian Workers Confederation (Confederazione Sindacale Italiana dei Lavoratori)

General Confederation of Public Employees (Confederazione Generale dell'Impiegi Pubblici)

Italian Federation of Independent Farmers (Federazione Italiana dei Coltivatori Diretti)

Italian Association of Independent Unions (Associazione Italiana dei Sindacati Autonomi)

Syndicalist Movement (Movimento Sindicalista)

Italian Confederation of Independent Unions (Confederazione Italiana dei Liberi Sindacati)

Each of these groups had sponsored its own pre-Fascist labor confederation. In 1922, just before the Fascists came to power, over 90 percent of the organized workers of Italy were members of either the Socialist-led General Confederation of Labor (Confederazione Generale del Laroro-CGL) or of the somewhat smaller Catholic-sponsored Italian Confederation of Workers (Confederazione Italiana dei Lavoratori-CIL).

gious beliefs. Under the Pact of Rome, signed in June 1944, the founders of the CGIL pledged themselves to work for the establishment of a united labor organization with "independence from all political parties." Thus, from the beginning, the CGIL's leadership and membership has been drawn from all political groups. The principal parties represented by labor leaders who have served as its officers have been the Communist, Christian-Democratic, Fusionist-Socialist, and United-Socialist, and Republican.

In its day-to-day operation, the CGIL has come to function largely as the agency through which labor has exerted its influence over the government. Notwithstanding the aggressive role CGIL has played in pressing for increased wages and social-security benefits and for a solution to the problem of Italy's 2 million unemployed, the policies it followed even in these matters have often reflected the political affiliations of the majority of its leaders. Many of the strikes which have been called-particularly the general strikeshave been for purposes which were political rather than primarily economic. During the first 6 months of 1948, 436 work stoppages, involving over 2.8 million workers, were reported by the General Confederation of Italian Industry; 49 percent of these strikes, the Confederation attributed to causes other than economic.

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Since June 1947, CGIL policies have been controlled in large part by labor leaders of the Communist Party. Together with the FusionistSocialists, with whom they have worked in close collaboration, Communists make up the majority on all national executive bodies of the CGIL as well as in most of its affiliated trade-union organizations. In some cases, this control has been based on a true majority support by the CGIL's membership; in others, it has been the result of undemocratic practices within various affiliated unions.

Inasmuch as the Christian-Democrats made up the largest single non-Communist group within the CGIL, the immediate effect of their split from the

In January 1947 a minority within the Socialist Party, opposing close collaboration with the Communist Party, split from their party, under the leadership of Giuseppe Saragat, to form the United Socialist Party. Socialists remaining within the party at the time of this split are identified here as the Fusionist Socialists.

The Italian Government discontinued the publication of official strike statistics in March 1948, pending reorganization of its reporting services.

CGIL was to increase Communist and Fusionis Socialist domination over CGIL policies.

Structurally, the CGIL is composed of nation federations of labor unions and labor chambers a characteristic of the labor movement in Ita since pre-Fascist times. It operates through national congress, a directorate, an executive con mittee, and a secretariat.

National Federations. The CGIL's national fe erations are responsible for negotiation of contrac and other actions involving workers in a sing industry or occupational group. In the fall 1948, there were 45 such national federation They ranged in size from large organizations lik the federation for metal workers, with a member ship of over 500,000, to small little-known federa tions some of which may exist only on paper.

Affiliated with each national federation are pro vincial trade-unions, also organized by industry o occupation, and affiliated with these are loca unions, similarly organized.

Each national federation is headed by two o three elected secretaries, one of whom serves as the secretary-general. These officials deal di rectly with the directorate of the CGIL on mat ters concerning the industries or categories of workers whom they represent.

Prior to the split in August 1948, about half of the national federations, including many of the largest (those for metal, textile, agricultural, building trades, and railroad workers, and for miners), were headed by secretaries-general belonging to the Communist Party. Secretariesgeneral from the Fusionist-Socialist Party headed other important national federations of government workers, printers, and chemical workers. Chambers of Labor. The function of the chambers of labor is to coordinate and promote the interests of their membership on the local or provin cial level and to provide leadership in the case of general strikes and other actions involving more than one category of workers. There is one regional labor chamber in Sicily and a provincial labor chamber in each of the 91 Provinces of Italy. Affiliated with the provincial labor chambers and thus indirectly affiliated with the CGIL are labor chambers in towns and smaller communities. Members of local trade-union organizations, irrespective of industry or occupation, comprise the membership of each labor chamber.

Like the national federations, each provincial isbor chamber is headed by elected secretaries, one of whom serves as the secretary-general. Communist control within the labor chambers is even stronger than in the case of the national federations. Previous to the summer of 1948, the secretaries-general of the great majority of labor chambers represented that party.

National Executive Bodies. The national congress of the CGIL, which determines basic policies, meets at least once every 2 years; its next meeting is scheduled for July 1949. Delegates to the congress are elected, on the basis of proportional representation, by the members of the various national federations and labor chambers which comprise the CGIL. Voting at the congress is based on the number of members represented by each delegate; but since delegates to the congress represent a membership which is enrolled in both the national federations and the labor chambers, their votes are divided between these organizations. In order to avoid duplicate representation, each national federation and each provincial labor chamber casts votes for half of the membership enrolled in both organizations; the labor chambers, in addition, cast votes for the full number of their members belonging to local unions with no national affiliations."

The directorate of the CGIL serves as the responsible agent of the organization during the periods between meetings of the congress. It meets not more than twice a year. Its 75 members are elected by the labor chambers and the national federations in the same manner as are delegates to the congress. Since June 1947, labor leaders from the Communist Party, numbering 38, have constituted a majority on the directorate.

The executive committee of the CGIL is elected by the national congress, and 11 of its 21 members are Communists. It meets not more than once a month, is charged with implementing decisions reached by the congress and the directorate, and is responsible to those bodies in the performance of its work.

The secretariat is the administrative body of the CGIL. It is responsible for coordinating the work of all affiliated organizations and for enforcing decisions reached by the congress, the directorate,

As provided in the draft constitution presented at the first national ngress of the CGIL, June 1947.

and the executive committee. The secretariat consists of 10 full-time officials-1 secretary-general, 3 secretaries, and 6 vice secretaries, all of whom are elected by the executive committee.

The post of secretary-general on the CGIL secretariat has been held by a Communist (Giuseppe di Vittorio) ever since it was created in June 1947. Serving also are 2 other Communists, 3 Fusionist-Socialists, 1 United-Socialist, 1 Republican, and (until August 1948) 2 Christian-Democrats. The Communists and Fusionist-Socialists consequently control a majority of the votes on the secretariat.

Minority Groups. Within the past year, ChristianDemocratic, Republican, and United-Socialist labor leaders, who until the split comprised the principal anti-Communist minorities within the CGIL, have repeatedly claimed that the policies followed by the Communists and FusionistSocialists who make up the majority have been dictated by considerations of political partisanship. In March 1948, despite the majority decision that the CGIL would not participate, a group of labor leaders from these three minority parties attended the London labor conference on the European Recovery Program. Two months later, ChristianDemocratic speakers withdrew from CGIL-sponsored May Day celebrations in several Italian cities in protest against the pro-Communist nature of these demonstrations. In June 1948, labor leaders of the three minority groups formed an "alliance" concerned with the "necessity of freeing the trade-unions of all party influences so that labor problems may be tackled in the exclusive interest of the workers." Finally, in July 1948, when the CGIL called a general strike in protest over the attempted assassination of the Communist political leader, Palmiro Togliatti, the 11 Christian-Democratic members of the CGIL executive bodies issued a declaration protesting that the strike was a political maneuver designed to embarass the De Gasperi Government and a violation of the Pact of Rome.

This last controversy led to the split which resulted first in the withdrawal (August 1948) of all Christian-Democrats from CGIL executive bodies, and later in the establishment (October 1948) of the independent LCGIL. By November 1948, only about 5 percent of the original Christian-Democratic membership remained within the