Screening and Monitoring Miners: Recruitment and Personnel Management in Japanese Coal Mining
Abstract: In the Japanese coal mining industry, firms originally used the dormitory system, an indirect organization of labor. Firms delegated all kinds of tasks of managing miners to dormitory heads. However, between the 1890s and 1930s, the introduction of machinery coincided with a gradual transformation to a direct organization of labor. We study a coal mine during the organization transitional period. Using job applications and attendance records, we observe miners’ recruitment paths and working statuses, and the organization structures to which they belonged. In other words, these records enable us to determine the links between the labor market and the organization of labor for individual workers. Thus, we consider how coal mining firms managed and monitored workers when traditional manual skills were still dominant, prior to the introduction of mining machinery. Our regression analysis shows that skilled miners tended to belong to conventional dormitories. However, the heads of these dormitories tended not to monitor these miners very well. In contrast, miners in a dormitory which was under stronger controlled than conventional one were monitored well. In addition, we find that firms began managing smaller units under dormitory heads.
