This study aims to clarify the measures implemented by coal mining companies to reduce work-related injuries specifically, miners’ nystagmus (designated as an occupational disease in 1929). This followed the increase in the level of work-related accident compensation for miners after the “Miners’ Labor Relief Regulations” came into effect in 1916. In terms of work-related accidents, this study examines the measures taken to address work-related injuries that occurred daily, rather than serious accidents caused by combustible gas and coal dust, which have been the subject of extensive research. We consider the Miike Coal Mine in Japan as a case study.
Previous studies explain the reasons for the decline in work-related injuries at Miike Coal Mine after the mid-1920s as follows. (1) the spread of safety competition, which was introduced as a rationalization policy during the post-World War I recession, and (2) the advancement of safety committee organization, which was part of labor-management cooperation.
This study, however, shows that companies improved workplace lighting prior to the institutional changes described above. These workplace improvements allowed miners to work in a safer and more efficient environment. We found that (1) darkness in the mines, which had been a problem inherent to coal mining, was alleviated and thereby, work-related injuries were reduced, and (2) an occupational disease called miner’s nystagmus (caused by working long hours in the dark) was prevented or resolved. Our findings also show that these improvements in underground lighting may also have been effective as a basis for the rationalization of production processes that developed in the second half of the 1920s.
The study examines how Mitsubishi Logistics built its warehouses from the 1920s to the first half of the 1930s. The warehousing industry in Japan in the 1920s made fewer profits than in the 1910s because of the recession after World War I, but it became an issue that built earthquake-proof and fireproof warehouses. Some warehousing corporations understood that the replacement of their buildings resulted in more gains generally, but they tended to have no financial leeway in their management. Therefore, they tried to get profits by using their existing warehouses as a rule. On the contrary, the major warehousing corporations, including Mitsubishi Logistics, built their warehouses constructed with reinforced concrete positively and scrapped their old ones. Furthermore, there were cases of rebuilding warehouses to introduce the equipment to stock specific goods according to a change of distribution as raw silk. Mitsubishi Logistics began to replace its warehouses before the big earthquake caused in the Kanto region in 1923, which rebuilt about half of its ones to be earthquake-proof and fireproof earlier than other major warehousing corporations early in the 1930s. The investment in buildings was also a huge burden on the major warehousing corporations, so there were some cases in which the plan for building warehouses could not be decided readily. However, Mitsubishi Logistics mainly carried out the strategy which changed loans to corporate bonds and could raise funds with fewer costs. In addition, Mitsubishi Logistics could drastically reduce rent warehouses and fire insurance by building new ones, which could also control their costs. In the warehousing industry from the second half of the 1920s to the first half of the 1930s, the performance of Mitsubishi Logistics was superior to the others as a result of the introduction of these corporate activities earlier.