Singer Sewing Machine Company and the Cultural Crosscurrents of 1930s Japan Vivien Ng, MBA ‘09 A look at America’s iconic Singer sewing machine company sheds light on some of the lessons earlier American capitalists learned when venturing abroad. On March 3, the Weatherhead East Asian Institute and the Center on Japanese Economy and Business cosponsored a lecture titled “Yankee Capitalist Go Home: The Singer Sewing Machine Company in 1930s Japan.” The guest speaker Andrew D. Gordon is a Professor of History at Harvard University, where he is also director of the Reischauer Institute for Japanese Studies. Hugh Patrick, director of the Center on Japanese Economy and Business, Columbia Business School, moderated the event. Singer’s tenure witnessed one of the largest and longest labor disputes in Japan and reflected tensions between globalization and local adaptations. From the summer of 1932 to the winter of 1933, Japanese salesmen for Singer led a dispute over compensation, severance, and retirement pay practices. Some of the issues included the existing pure-commission compensation versus one that included a small base salary, penalties imposed on salesmen if installment-paying customers prepaid all their installments causing the company to lose potential interest income, and lack of a severance pay. The workers wanted conditions closer to their native Japanese customs. For example, about half of the companies in Japan were offering some version of severance pay at that time. Leaflets were circulated condemning Singer as “Yankee Capitalists” and even referred to a racial hierarchy with messages such as “Stop treating us like Negroes.” Singer was very stubborn. They thought their systems worked well universally and should work in Japan. Singer machines dominated the world markets, with about 80 of market share, and according to Professor Gordon their attitude was “proud and uncompromising.” The dispute turned violent at some points and Singer dismissed all employees who took part in the strike. Eventually, the workers’ solidarity fell apart and the employees abandoned all their demands, except some small face-saving ones. “The employees lost the battle but the company lost the war,” Professor Gordon said. There were Anti-American sentiments everywhere during the strike and Singer lost market share in Japan at the start of the strike and through the 1930s. Singer had one of the largest American presences in the region then, with 800 stores and 8,000 employees in Japan, Korea, and Manchuria. In the 1940s and 50s, its Japanese counterparts began taking over and increasing market share as nationalistic sentiments rose. Before the dispute, Singer’s Japanese competitors had been relatively small with weak reputations and less advanced technology. “Some compromises would have been better in the long run,” said Professor Gordon. Singer’s management seemed to have realized that fact after the dispute ended, he said. However it came too late because Singer never regained its market share and eventually bowed out of Japan.