14 Labor Disputes and Productivity in Japan and the United States

The quantity of effective labor in the work force depends not only on the number of workers employed but on how hard they work. Many explanations of the superior performance of the Japanese economy stress this fact. Japanese workers seem more dedicated and motivated than their American counterparts. We examine this phenomenon by comparing the effects of worker attitude on productivity and production costs in the U.S. and Japanese manufacturing sector. The findings suggest that worker attitude affects economic growth.' In analyzing the effects of worker behavior on automobile industry performance-total factor productivity, labor productivity, and total unit costfor the 1959-76 period, we simulated the effects of a 10% improvement in worker attitudes on industry performance (Norsworthy and Zabala 1985b). We found that positive changes in attitudes would have resulted in substantial cost savings over the last two decades. In 1976, for example, the estimated cost savings for automobile manufactures were approximately $5 .O billion. We also investigated worker-attitude effects on the shadow value of total capital input, assuming a significant capital-using effect from negative worker behavior in auto plants (Norsworthy and Zabala 198%). A 10% improvement in worker behavior would save between $1 .O billion and $6.0 billion between 1959 and 1979. Thus, poor worker attitudes caused a large capital-using bias in technology and, thus, increased capital requirements. These results are