大正期労働立法の一断面

労働争議調停法の成立過程

抄録

Public Peace Police Law (promulgated in 1900) Art.17. forbade assault, menace, slander and sedition accompanied with organization or disputes carried out by laborers. After World War I labor movement developed, then abrogation of this clause and enactment of labor union law became political issues.
In those days labor affairs were under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Social Affairs (Shakai-Kyoku), which was organized as outer bureau of the Ministry of Home Affairs (Naimu-Sho) in 1922. The young bureaucrats in this Bureau had a plan of labor legislation that made a model of Western legislations. The plan was as follows; (a) Public Peace Police Law Art.17. should be abolished, (b) labor union law guaranteeing the right to organize should be enacted, (c) labor disputes should be settled by a conciliation committee provided by labor disputes conciliation law, (d) socialists' movement should be supervised by other peace law.
The other sections in Government (the Ministry of Agriculture, Commerce and Industry, Judicial, War-Office and the Navy Department, etc.) opposed this plan, and the capitalist unions also opposed it. At the 51th Diet (1925-26) Government brought three bills, i. e. bill of amendment of Public Peace Police Law, bill of Labor Disputes Conciliation Law and bill of labor union law, and the former two passed the Diet, but the last one was pigeonholed. The causes brought this result, I suppose, can be attributed to the opposition by the capitalist unions, the disagreement among the members in the Cabinet, and various parties' interests in the Diet. Eventually until after Japan's surrender labor union law had not been enacted.
The Labor Disputes Conciliation Law (Rodo Sogi Chotei Ho) was the only law that regulated relations between managers and labor unions before World War II in Japan. Its traits were as follows; (a) the contrast between compulsory conciliation in the case of public employees and voluntarism in other case, (b) ad hoc conciliation committee was to consist of nine members, three each from management and labor, and three chosen by the former six from disinterested outsiders, (c) the conciliation proposal could not be enforced, and if the conciliation were not successful the proposal of committee would be made public. The scholars who took the prominent view look on this law as the switching of the Public Peace Police Law. When we consider the significance of this law, it is necessary for us to discuss it not only in the context of labor legislation, but also in reference to the various conciliation statutes during the 1920's (the Land-Lease and House-Lease Conciliation Law, the Conciliation Law for Tenants, etc.).