Hon. Sweatshop

At the end of World War II, Japan's Ohmi Silk Spinning Co. was a down-at-heel outfit whose seven ramshackle wooden factories, taken all together, were worth less than $30,000. Today, after seven years of operating under Japan's newly liberalized labor laws, Ohmi has grown into a $3,000,000 corporation, whose 13,000 employees and half a million humming spindles have helped push it up to sixth place in Japan's vital yarn industry. The formula by which Ohmi's boss, fat, arrogant Kakuji Natsukawa, has achieved this success is simple: he has paid little attention to the labor laws.

Ohmi's workers are for the most part teen-age girls from the country who work long hours for half the prevailing wage scale, often as little as $10 a month. Yet, on the many occasions when Natsukawa's company has been haled into court, the girls have steadfastly refused to testify against him. Boss Natsukawa, a Buddhist who drives a Cadillac and gives the fanciest geisha parties in Tokyo, used to explain it all by the company policy he calls "K.S.E." (Kindness, Special Quality, Efficiency). "After all," he boasted, spreading his fat hands wide, "Ohmi has never had a strike."

Special Kindness. Last week Ohmi was having its strike, and Japan was learning more about K.S.E. In a published complaint, Natsukawa's workers explained how, before each of the day's three work shifts in their clockless factories, they were marched into the factory yard and forced, rain or shine, to sing company songs and recite such uplifting Buddhist promises as, "Today I will make no immoderate demands" or "Today I will not grumble or complain." Once a week every worker, regardless of religion, is forced to attend a Buddhist religious service. At one rally in the plant several years ago, fire broke out and 23 Ohmi girls were trampled to death. Huddled together in small, crowded dormitories on the factory grounds, girl workers are forbidden to wear lipstick, must be in bed at 9 and may not leave the factory premises without special permits approved by at least seven company officials.

Marriage Penalty. All workers' mail is censored, and love letters are frequently destroyed. If, by any chance, a romance should flower under these adverse conditions, company officials usually do not allow the newlyweds to live together, may even transfer one spouse to a distant factory. The pay of both is often reduced "because of decrease in efficiency."

Last week as strikebreakers (hired for $1.25 a day) patrolled Kakuji Natsukawa's mills and drumbeat a continuous tattoo to drown out the shouts of strikers, Natsukawa calmly fired some 760 striking workers for what he called "poor achievement," and threatened to confine other strikers to their dormitories for a month. Government officials swarmed over his mills, and the Labor Ministry appointed a committee to negotiate a settlement, but Boss Natsukawa's faith remained firm. "Almighty Buddha will protect me," he said. "I am not an ordinary capitalist."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.