Description
Book SynopsisIn Our Unions, Our Selves, Anne Zacharias-Walsh provides an in-depth look at the rise of women-only unions in Japan, an organizational analysis of the challenges these new unions face in practice, and a firsthand account of the ambitious, occasionally contentious, and ultimately successful international solidarity project that helped to spark a new feminist labor movement.
In the early 1990s, as part of a larger wave of union reform efforts in Japan, women began creating their own women-only labor unions to confront long-standing gender inequality in the workplace and in traditional enterprise unions. These new unions soon discovered that the demand for individual assistance and help at the bargaining table dramatically exceeded the rate at which the unions could recruit and train members to meet that demand. Within just a few years, women-only unions were proving to be both the most effective option women had for addressing problems on the job and in serious danger of
Trade Review
A very useful introduction to understanding the gender relations, working culture, and condition of women in Japan.... It also serves as a handbook for activists to work with Japanese activists in the future in order to understand their styles of working and meeting. Meanwhile, the accessible language and engaging narrative do help readers from various fields to enjoy this book.
* Global Labour Journal *
Teasing out implicit assumptions behind labour organizing models, logics, and strategies of a wide variety of US and Japanese activism groups, the book would make a stimulating addition to graduate and advanced undergraduate discussions of transnational activism and social movements in social sciences, labour studies, and gender studies classrooms.
* Pacific Review *
Table of ContentsIntroduction 1
Part 1 JAPANESE WOMEN'S UNIONS
1. A Union of One’s Own
2. A Tale of Two Activists
3. Women’s Union Tokyo in Practice
Part 2 US- JAPAN CROSSBORDER COLLABORATION
4. First, We Drink Tea
5. Under the Microscope
6. Crisis of Difference
7. Made in Japan
8. A Movement Transformed
Conclusion: Lessons for Building Crossborder Collaborations
Appendix A: Characteristics of Common Nonregular Forms of Employment Appendix B: Curriculum Wish Lists
Appendix C: Why Japanese Women "Can’t" Organize
