Labor Leaders Without Fame in the Post WWII Steel Industry

: Kanae Harada and Kazuyoshi Isoda

Abstract

In the history of labor movement in the steel industry, there are a couple of leaders who were involved in long period and gave strong influences on its trajectories. On the other hand, there are people who took a leader role in only limited period but left a deep footprint. The latter type of leaders has not been talked about much and has been focused on little in historical writings. In this paper, the author tries to uncover how two of those labor leaders without fame, Kanae Harada and Kazuyoshi Isoda, acted. By doing so, the paper brings about some insights on the formation of post-WWII labor movement in Japan. Particularly, paying special attention to the fact that white collar employees played a critical role in the early stage of the movement, the paper examines the activities of Harada and Isoda, both of whom have white collar backgrounds.