“Rationalization” and Workers: The Case of the Paper-Mill Industry in Tomakomai

Economic development in Japan since 1955 has been achieved by the comprehensive “rationalization” in labour process, through mechanization and organization which are mainly oriented to raise productivity. As a result, the working conditions and the way of life of workers have been changed. Dissatisfaction related to workers' stance has been growing among them and their demands to improve it have increased. These processes are observed typically in the paper-mill industry. The purpose of this paper is to describe the workers' situation and degree of satisfaction with respect to the working conditions in a paper-mill factory. The results obtained from our research are as follows; (1) Workers feel it nessary to have more workers to operate the machinery in their working place, in spite of the employer's intention to reduce the number of workers. Accordingly, the workers can not help accepting the policy of management which brings them to harder conditions of work and longer duty time. (2) Workers have objections to the existing system of estimation as to the content of labour and to the ranking system based on it. They feel such systems unjust. Because they think that mechanization brings the standardization of workers' skills and the equivalent rewards to the same kind of tasks should be paid.