2018 Volume 85 Issue 3 Pages 296-308
The purpose of this paper is to consider how the Japan Teachers' Union (JTU) fought for the Teacher Status Law. The Teacher Status Law is the bill which preceded the Special Act for Education Personnel. To approach this question, I used the JTU's internal records.
To analyze this question, I took three analytic views (section 2): (1) the JTU's attitude to the connection between the National Public Service Act and the Teacher Status Law, (2) whether the JTU was able to find a route to the reflection of their opinion about the Teacher Status Law, (3) whether the JTU was able to obtain information on the Teacher Status Law at all. In this way, I summarize how the JTU fought for the Teacher Status Law (section 3). In addition, I analyze the logic of “specialty of teacher labor” deeply (section 4), and describe how the JTU movement for the Teacher Status Law was a dead end (section 5). In conclusion, I discuss the weakness of the JTU's movement for the Teacher Status Law (section 6).
Through these analyses, the following findings were obtained.
The JTU proceeded with their movement to protect their guarantee of status. At first, they dithered over whether to join other civil servants' unions to prevent the National Public Service Act from passing, or to fight for the Teacher Status Law themselves. But when the National Public Service Act was submitted to the Diet (Aug. 1947 to Oct. 1947), they chose to work against the National Public Service Act with other civil servants' unions, and after the National Public Service Act was enacted, they fought for the Teacher Status Law themselves (mid-Oct. 1947 to Jan. 1948) (section 3 (1)(2)).
However, the movement to modify the National Public Service Act stalled, and the JTU was unable to hold advance consultations on the Teacher Status Law (section 3 (3)); moreover, the JTU could not obtain concrete information on the Teacher Status Law. From February 1948 on, the JTU was unable to settle on an effective method for their movement, and when they discussed the nature of their movement at last (June 1948), they had no remaining good options.
I also found that the JTU used the logic of “specialty of teaching labor” clearly (section 4). It is said that the JTU movement was ineffective not so much because of their ambiguities about the logic of “specialty of teaching labor”, but due to “the Ministry of Education's habitual secrecy”. So the JTU's intelligence operations and advance consultation opportunities were insufficient.
The JTU's internal record shows that “the Ministry of Education's habitual secrecy” made it very difficult for the JTU movement to take place effectively at the crucial moment of the guarantee of their status. In fact, even when the JTU held the three rights of labor and was at their postwar peak of effectiveness, they were subjected to various restraints.
