ABSTRACT
This chapter situates the politics of labour market deregulation in Japan and Italy in a historical perspective by examining the ideological legacies of labour unions in these countries. The Japanese and Italian governments initiated only modest labour market reforms in the 1980s. The 1985 Temporary Work Agency Law legalised temporary agency work for the first time in Japan. The chapter analyses labour politics in Japan and Italy before the 1990s by examining the historical and ideological legacies of Japanese and Italian labour unions in order to provide readers with an understanding of the background of their particular actions in the political processes of labour market deregulation from the 1990s. The Japanese labour policy-making structure in the 1980s was based on the deliberation in the advisory councils of the Ministry of Labour and private-sector unions, which often cooperated with the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and employer associations in their pursuit of a smaller government, received favourable access to the policy-making process.
