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From Labor Rationalization to Social Citizenship: Professional Expertise and Social Mobilization in the Recognition and Compensation of Pneumoconiosis in Japanese Coal Mining Industry
| Contrary to metal mining where dust related occupational diseases had been very well known by miners from protoindustrial times, in Japanese coal mining, knowledge first developed in the hand of professional experts. Domestic research funded by the state and the industry and influence of international norms set by the International Labor Organization finally ended in the vote of a Silicosis law in 1955, of a Pneumoconiosis law in 1960, and consequently in the enacting of systematic screening and compensation procedures. Of course, trade unions played also a role in the recognition process of pneumoconiosis as an occupational disease, particularly through political pressure, but they were overall at disadvantage in front of industry and state’s powerful professional expertise. Indeed, as screening and compensation procedures were mainly based on a professional knowledge partly disconnected from workers experiences, pneumoconiosis cases tended to be very much under recorded. Using mainly the so called “Chikuhô suits” archives, we will see how, and under what conditions, miners groups tried to regain their social citizenship in winning fair compensation through the liability suits that took place from the end of the 1970s.
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