Abstract
TO a large extent, Japan's modern economic development was based upon human exploitation and suppression of worker protest. Occupation policy therefore called for deliberate efforts to strengthen the economic status and political effectiveness of the wage earner. SCAP (Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers) enormously encouraged autonomous trade unionism as the chief means for expanding labor's share of national income and securing a voice for the worker equal to management's in setting terms and conditions of employment. Also, the reforms required raising of minimum labor standards in industrial undertakings and broadened the scope and coverage of social security and other protective labor laws. In certain ways, results have been spectacular. Labor unions, when allowed to exist before the war, embraced little more than 400,000 members at their peak (1936). They were virtually nonexistent at the time of the surrender, but within four years membership mushroomed to almost 7 million. Today, Japan boasts the largest organized labor movement among the nonCommunist nations of Asia and the
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