The ratio of dispatched workers to regular corporate employees in Japan came to 12.4% last year, more than double the figure eight years ago, a government survey showed Monday. The data, compiled by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, indicated corporate Japan is increasingly incorporating temporary workers to cut personnel costs following 1999 deregulation in the labor dispatch service field.
TozenAdmin
8,340 foreign trainees missing / Bureau says many on program forced to work excessive hours for low pay
An investigation last year by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry on companies using the trainees found that 731 firms, or about 80 percent, were making them work very long hours for low pay, in violation of the Labor Standards Law and the Minimum Wages Law.
Immigration Battle Diary
Fundamentally, [Hidenori] Sakanaka [former head of the Tokyo Immigration Bureau] argues, the issue before Japan is what kind of country it wants to become by the middle of this century: a “big” country or a “small” country. Becoming a Big Country means accepting, by 2050, roughly 20 million immigrants in order to maintain current economic levels of prosperity. The alternative is to become a Small Country, let the population drop to about 100 million, keep most foreigners out, and use robots to do some of the work often done by immigrants elsewhere.
To achieve the goal of becoming a Big Country, Sakanaka advocates the establishment of an Immigration Ministry, a separate government organ with full ministerial powers that would be responsible for all aspects of Japan’s immigration policy, as well as the immigrants themselves once they have arrived and until they have obtained Japanese citizenship. Sakanaka basically favors Japan becoming a Big Country, not just for economic reasons but to serve as the “Canada of Asia”, a multicultural, multiethnic salad bowl of a country where people of all races and creeds can feel comfortable.
The Rise of Migrant Militancy
As organizing campaigns in New York City show, migrant workers are indispensable to the revitalization of the labor movement. As employers turn to migrant labor to fill low-wage jobs, unions must encourage and support organizing drives that emerge from the oppressive conditions of work. As the 1930s workers’ movement demonstrates, if conditions improve for immigrants, all workers will prosper. To gain traction, unions must recognize that capital is pitting migrant workers against native-born laborers to lower wages and improve profitability. Although unions have had some success organizing immigrants, most are circling the wagons, disinterested in building a more inclusive mass labor movement. The first step is for unions to go beyond rhetoric and form a broad and inclusive coalition embracing migrant workers.
All prefectural labor offices found engaged in dubious accounting
All 47 prefectural labor bureaus under the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare are found to have engaged in some form of irregular accounting practices such as logging expenses for staff travel never made, investigations by the government’s Board of Audit showed Saturday.
The bureaus misappropriated a total of more than 7 billion yen in the six years through fiscal 2004, they showed.
Coalition decides to shelve ‘conspiracy’ bill
The ruling coalition has given up trying to pass a highly criticized bill that would make “conspiracies” to commit crimes a punishable offense, officials said Friday.
The “conspiracy offense” bill is intended to target organized crime, but critics say it is so vaguely worded that it could be used against ordinary citizens, unions and civic groups.
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200610070131.html
Firm punished over staff dispatch
The Osaka Labor Bureau slapped major subcontractor Collaborate Co. with a business suspension Tuesday for illegally sending its employees to clients as de facto temp staff.
The Workers’ Dispatch Law prohibits the practice, which amounts to subcontractors acting as temporary staff agencies.
It is the first time in Japan for a company to be told to actually close shop temporarily as punishment for the illegal practice.
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200610050134.html
Temp staff violations to lead to suspension
A major Osaka-based subcontractor is facing a business suspension order after it continued to dispatch temporary staff in violation of the Workers’ Dispatch Law, sources said.
They said the suspension order, to be served as early as this week, will cover all 84 offices of Collaborate Co., and will likely see the manufacturing subcontractor’s business activities halted for a two-week period.
The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare decided to go ahead with the measure after Collaborate ignored repeated requests to stop dispatching temp staff under the guise of subcontracted workers.
In recent years, a growing number of manufacturers has been found accepting workers on a subcontracted basis as a way to skirt employment-related responsibilities, particularly in regard to safety and supervision.
Furthermore, if labor is brought in through temporary staffing agencies, manufacturers are legally obliged to offer the workers full-time working contracts after a certain period of employment.
Under the Workers’ Dispatch Law, subcontractors are prohibited from supplying manpower to firms with which they have agreed to provide services or materials to meet other contracts.
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200610020098.html
When illegal foreign workers get hurt, compensation is an uphill battle
Individuals, […], labor unions and private organizations are continuing low-profile activities to provide support for those injured workers. Under the workers’ accident compensation insurance, even if a victim of an industrial accident is working here illegally, compensatory payments are made.
However, many employers refuse to help their illegal employees apply for workers’ compensation. And many illegal workers are afraid of applying out of fears their status will be revealed.
…
“Among employers who take on illegal immigrants, those who try to conceal industrial accidents are probably in the majority,” [Hiroshi Nakajima, of the foreign workers’ section of the Tokyo-based Zentoitsu Workers Union, which has more than 3,000 foreign members] said.
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200609290164.html
English just ‘candy’ for the brain
Likening English education to “sweets”–pleasing but unnecessary–[newly appointed] education minister Bunmei Ibuki has again expressed his opposition to making the language compulsory at elementary schools.
Questioned on the issue during a post-Cabinet meeting news conference Friday, the new minister insisted that teaching fundamental subjects such as Japanese should come first.
Describing those core subjects as “protein and starch,” which he said were important to maintain the body, he brushed aside suggestions that English classes were necessary.
“They (elementary school pupils) can eat delicious cakes and Japanese-style sweets if they still have an appetite for them (after eating the necessities),” he said.
While admitting that when children study English they also gain other positive benefits associated with cross-cultural communication, he said, “Children should be taught English conversation from the alphabet only after they have acquired the minimum good grounding in Japanese.”
In March, a special team of the Central Council for Education recommended compulsory English classes be introduced one hour a week from the fifth grade up, prompting widespread discussion on the issue.
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200609300143.html