About 1.9 million foreigners are registered in Japan. Combined with illegal entries, non-Japanese make up 1.5 percent of Japan?s population, a tiny proportion compared to immigrant populations in Europe and North America. The challenges so familiar to officials in the US, Europe and Australia are thus relatively new in Japan.
Official policy has not come to terms with the labor deficit, and without government action, employers will meet the growing demand for workers with illegal immigrants. Business voices, such as the Keidanren (Japan Business Federation) and Toyota Chairman Hiroshi Okuda, have called for importing foreign labor. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and legislators must decide whether to open the gates to mass immigration or prepare for a markedly shrunken economy. Yet recent central government initiatives focus on controlling or expelling those foreigners already here. In June, to better monitor foreign residents, officials announced a plan that could require them to carry IC chip identification.
TozenAdmin
Thinking of teaching in Japan?
Most people, when they first arrive, work at a place like Nova, probably the biggest employer of native English teachers in the world. By dint of their overseas recruiting programme, NO-VAcation (as we called it when I worked there) is the first employer for many arriving in Japan. But even this has changed. Recently, after a long struggle with the local General Union, it was forced to provide its full-time teachers with health, pension and unemployment benefits.
http://education.independent.co.uk/careers_advice/article348582.ece
Report of the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance
United Nations Special Rapporteur Doudou Diène’s report on his official mission to survey racial discrimination and xenophobia in Japan has been published by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. His recommendations include:
94. The Government should adopt appropriate measures to guarantee that foreigners are treated equally in Japan. It should avoid the adoption of any measure that would discriminate against them in the fields of employment, social security, housing, etc., as well as in the exercise of all their rights and freedoms, in particular their freedom to move, to access public places and their right not to be persecuted and perceived as potentially more dangerous than the Japanese. Situations such as blatant refusal to foreigners for them to access public places are totally unacceptable in a democratic country and should not be allowed.
Female on throne could marry foreigner, Hiranuma warns
[LDP lawmaker and former trade minister Takeo Hiranuma] warned the reform could corrupt the Imperial line, which he said has been the supreme symbol of Japanese national and ethnic identity for centuries.
“If Aiko becomes the reigning empress and gets involved with a blue-eyed foreigner while studying abroad and marries him, their child may be the emperor,” Hiranuma told about 40 lawmakers, academics and supporters at a Tokyo hall. “We should never let that happen.”
Court rules English language school Nova billed student illegally
English language conversation school operator Nova Co. illegally billed a student when it refused to refund her the full price she had paid for classes she didn’t take, the Kyoto District Court ruled. Presiding Judge Mizuho Ebi ordered Nova to pay the student the 176,672 yen she had sought when suing the company.
http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/national/news/20060131p2a00m0na011000c.html
Settling labor disputes promptly
In April, Japan will introduce an “industrial tribunal system” to settle individual labor disputes, such as those involving dismissals, working conditions and reassignments. The purpose of this system is to settle disputes expeditiously by limiting the number of trial sessions to no more than three.
The number of disputes involving labor relations has increased markedly in recent years, reflecting the prolonged business slump. In fiscal 2004, labor-dispute “counseling corners” throughout the country, including prefectural labor relations bureaus, received 820,000 complaints and inquiries. Of these, 160,000 cases involved individual labor disputes. Both numbers represent more than three times the figures for fiscal 2001.
Kawasaki foreign residents’ panel has significant impact on city policy
“If a foreigner is admitted as a resident and has the right to vote, the consciousness of local assembly members, companies and communities will change and their discrimination against foreigners will decline,” he said.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20060103f3.htm
Kosei Gakuen Girls High School Protest
Many thanks to Nambu members who made it all the way out to Chitosekarasuyama at 7:40am on Christmas Eve to protest the non-renewal of a member at Kosei Gakuen Girls High School. The high school has only one entrance, which made it very easy to hand out leaflets to the students as they arrived. The student population is about 500, and we handed out over 400 leaflets, so the majority of the girls, and their parents, will now be aware of the administration’s arbitrary approach to hiring and firing.
Foreign worker ranks grow, diversify
A record high 198,380 foreigners were working in Japan as of June 1, up 10.2 percent from a year earlier, according to a recent survey by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry.
A total of 144,891 were indirectly-employed workers, including temporary or contract staff, an increase of 9.4 percent, the ministry said.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20051224a8.htm
Top court favors tenant in row over responsibility for wear and tear in apartment
The Supreme Court on Friday ruled that a public housing corporation should return the deposit it seized from a tenant to cover repairs in an apartment from normal wear and tear.
http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/national/news/20051216p2a00m0na021000c.html