TozenAdmin

Business lobby to end donation drive

by

Nippon Keidanren (Japan Business Federation) plans to stop soliciting political donations from its members starting this year, in part because of the ascendancy of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, which opposes such fund raising, sources said Wednesday.

The move by the nation’s most influential business lobby, with a membership of 1,600 companies and organizations, could result in a sharp drop in political donations, the sources said.

In 2008, it raised about 3 billion yen ($33 million) in donations from its members. Nearly 2.7 billion yen went to the Liberal Democratic Party, which was toppled from power in the Lower House election last August after more than five decades of almost uninterrupted rule.

But Nippon Keidanren leaders concluded that its orchestration of donations was incompatible with the DPJ’s political platform and growing public outrage at scandals involving political donations.

http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201002250444.html

900 axed JNR unionists may get ¥29.5 million each

by

A 23-year-old dispute over the dismissal of unionized workers at the Japanese National Railways may finally be heading toward a resolution now that the ruling bloc and an opposition party have drafted a ¥27 billion settlement plan.

The package, hammered out Tuesday by the three coalition partners and New Komeito, calls for a payment of ¥29.5 million each to about 900 former JNR workers who have sued over their dismissal and asks the current Japan Railway companies to hire about 230 of them who are 55 years old or younger, according to sources.

In exchange, the workers will drop their lawsuits.

The proposed ¥27 billion payout would be undertaken by the Japan Railway Construction, Transport and Technology Agency, an independent administrative agency that inherited JNR’s debts after it was privatized and split up in 1987.

Representatives of the railway agency and the National Railway Workers Union, known as Kokuro, are expected to sign a compromise deal based on the package, the sources said.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20100225a2.html

No one-size-fits-all for foreign suffrage

by

How the rest of the world deals with aliens at the ballot box

Support has been surprisingly muted for the Hatoyama administration’s push toward suffrage for foreign permanent residents, even among the constituencies such a law would enfranchise. The debate is definitely a hot one, sparking a number of protests against the plan around Tokyo, with opposition logic ranging from the rational (“They should nationalize”) to xenophobic (“Foreigners who hate Japan will take over the country”).

Giving voting rights to noncitizens is of course a controversial move, with implications in terms of sovereignty, democracy, integration and discrimination. But it is an issue many countries have been dealing with for generations as they grappled with the legacy of colonization and mass migration. While still generally an exception to the rule, over 40 countries around the world give legal aliens the right to vote in some capacity, employing a wide range of systems to address equally varied concerns.

Laws range from the plain (any permanent residents having resided in Iceland continuously for at least five years may vote) to complex (in Switzerland, foreigners may not vote on the national level, but may vote, and even run for office, in some cantons and/or municipalities). A few countries, such as the United States, Canada and Australia, have over the years taken away suffrage for foreign residents

Within Asia, the South Korean government made two big leaps simultaneously in 2005 by lowering the voting age to 19 and ushering in foreign suffrage in local elections for those who have been permanent residents for three years or more. According to the National Election Commission, at the time of local polls in May 2006 there were only 6,579, mostly Taiwanese, residents that benefited from the new legislation on noncitizen voting rights.

“Korea is now the first nation in Asia to grant voting rights to foreign residents,” The Herald newspaper quoted Kim Cheol, deputy director of public relations at the Nation Election Commission, as declaring. “We hope this will accelerate a move to integrate foreign communities into the homogenous society.”

The issues of foreign suffrage in South Korea and Japan are deeply interlinked due to the legacy of Japan’s colonization of the Korean Peninsula between 1910 and the end of the war. There is speculation that one of the reasons the move was made in Seoul was in the hope that Japan would give similar rights to its foreign residents, particularly the nearly 600,000 Koreans who live here. South Korean foreign and trade minister Yu Myung Hwan hinted as much during a meeting earlier this month with Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada, and again called on Japan to grant local-level suffrage to permanent residents, a measure Okada said the government was “considering.”

“I think enfranchising immigrants is the logical next step in the fulfillment of the practice of democracy,” says Ron Hayduk, political science professor at the City University of New York, author of “Democracy For All” and vocal supporter of immigrant suffrage. Proponents of noncitizen voting such as Hayduk believe that while citizenship is a viable solution for some, for those such as Japan’s Zainichi Koreans, the decision to renounce citizenship of their home country is not only an issue of loyalty, but also of familial ties and material investments, particularly as Japan does not permit dual citizenship.

But while municipalities around the globe buy into foreigner suffrage under the principles of “No taxation without representation” and immigrant involvement, there is no one-size-fits-all policy for giving noncitizens the right to have a say in what many strongly feel is an arena where only naturalized or native-born citizens have a role to play.

“What works in one jurisdiction isn’t going to necessarily work in another,” Hayduk admits, “but precluding the option to vote for long-term residents creates opportunities for continued inequality and discriminatory policies.”

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20100223zg.html

Chinese students cautioned after GEOS English schools in Australia collapse

by

China’s Education Ministry on Sunday warned students considering studying overseas against Australian schools run by the GEOS group after more than 40 Chinese students were left stranded with the group’s collapse.

More than 2,300 students in GEOS group schools across Australia were affected after the college closures. The schools were scattered across Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Cairns.

GEOS is a Japanese company which owns hundreds of colleges around the world. The GEOS group has run out of money for its Australian colleges,according to Australian media reports.

Chinese embassies and consulates in Australia are negotiating with local authorities to settle the issue to safeguard students’ legitimate rights.

The Education Ministry has drawn up a recommendation list of nearly 15,000 schools in 33 countries worldwide on its website. The recommended schools are relatively trustworthy and reliable.

Australia has been a preferred destination for overseas education for Indian and Chinese students.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics said the number of Chinese student enrollments was 146,000 by June 2009, up an average annual 16 percent over the past six years.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2010-02/22/c_13182360.htm

Average per capita income up for fourth straight year

by

The national average per capita income has increased for the fourth consecutive year, according to the Annual Report on Prefectural Accounts for fiscal 2007 released by the Cabinet Office.

The figure, averaged from prefectural averages, came to approximately 3.05 million yen, a 0.7 percent increase from fiscal 2006. While the variation coefficient dropped for the first time in six years, it still remained high, indicating wide disparities in income among prefectures; there was a nearly 2.5 million yen difference between prefectural per capita income in top-earning Tokyo and Okinawa Prefecture, which came in last place.

Twenty-nine prefectures experienced an increase from the previous fiscal year.

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20100220p2a00m0na011000c.html

English school ordered to close / Court warned Fortress Japan last year over coercive sales practices

by

The Consumer Affairs Agency and the Tokyo metropolitan government on Thursday ordered a Tokyo-based English-language conversation school chain operator to suspend operations due to its coercive method of selling its services to university students and others.

Fortress Japan talked customers into signing contracts for the purchase of English-learning programs, often telling students, “You’ll never be able to find work with your current English-language abilities.”

The authorities issued the order based on the Specified Commercial Transactions Law.

A consumer organization certified by the prime minister filed a lawsuit last year arguing that Fortress Japan’s way of soliciting customers was against the law. Last March, the plaintiff and the company reached the first settlement of its kind in the nation.

There are seven consumer organizations across the nation certified by the prime minister to file lawsuits against companies over aggressive sales schemes. The certifications were introduced to discourage dubious or illegal sales schemes before damages proliferate.

But the authorities said Fortress Japan continued to use unlawful sales practices after the settlement, leading to the stricter punishment by the agency.

According to Fortress Japan’s Web site and other sources, the company has operated English-language schools under various names, including Global Trinity, in Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Sendai and Fukuoka.

The Kansai Consumers Support Organization (KC’s), an Osaka-based nonprofit organization that filed a lawsuit against the company, and the agency said Fortress Japan solicited students who gathered at job interview meetings, telling the students that they could attend the schools’ lectures any time at their convenience without any limit on the number of classes.

The company had the students sign contracts for eight-to 10-month courses for 500,000 yen to 600,000 yen.

But the lectures were offered only on limited dates and some students complained they could attend lectures only about once a month.

Also, employees of Fortress Japan obstructed students attempting to walk away from sales pitches, trying to persuade them to buy lesson packages by saying such things as, “You won’t be able to perform sufficiently when you start working for a company.”

The agency and the metropolitan government judged that the way Fortress Japan solicited customers constituted false explanations and harassment, which are illegal.

They intend to publicly censure Zenken Career Center–which was renamed as Linguage Corp.–a Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo-based company that was entrusted to manage the English conversation schools.

KC’s filed a lawsuit with the Osaka District Court demanding Fortress Japan halt its unlawful soliciting practices. Last March, the company admitted that its way of soliciting was unlawful and reached a settlement in which the company promised to cancel contracts and refund customers.

But KC’s said the company continued to unlawfully solicit students for business after the settlement, with at least 71 confirmed unlawful acts committed up to November.

In recent years, there has been an increasing number of consultations and complaints about similar vicious sales pushes on students during job searches.

In many of instances, students were told they would not be able to find jobs unless they had certain skills the salespeople were selling, making the students anxious.

According to the National Consumer Affairs Center of Japan, there were 948 inquiries from job-searching students about similar incidents over five years from April 2004.

In fiscal 2009, the center received 223 such complaints by the end of January.

Last April, a man in the Kansai region who was then a third-year university student was approached by a female employee of Fortress Japan in front of his university campus. She asked him to fill out a simple survey about English conversation and job-hunting activities.

He wrote his name and phone number on the sheet, and was frequently called about attending an introduction meeting.

He finally agreed to attend a meeting, but ended up being confined in a small room together with a male employee of the company for three hours and was cajoled into signing a contract for lessons.

When the student tried to refuse, the employee looked down at him and demanded he sign the contract, telling him, “You’ll never survive in the business world with such a carefree attitude.”

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20100219TDY02303.htm

Foreign trainees easily exploited as bosses take advantage of system

by

The controversy should have heated up after last month’s ruling by the Kumamoto District Court, which found in favor of four female Chinese trainees who sued their employer and the agent that arranged for that employment. The trainees were awarded unpaid wages amounting to ¥12.8 million as well as damages to the tune of ¥4.4 million. The plaintiffs, who worked for a sewing company, said they were forced to work up to 15 hours a day with only two or three days off a month. They did not receive overtime pay.

Trainees are ostensibly in Japan to learn some sort of skill they can take back to their home country and make a living from. They are not supposed to work overtime because technically they aren’t here as employees, but no one has believed that lie for years now, and the JITCO official’s admission attests to the fact that the real reason for the trainee program is to provide Japanese businesses with cheap labor. This system has given rise to a racket involving semiprivate brokers who traffic in workers from Asia who want to come to Japan and make a lot of money in a short period of time.

The Kumamoto case wasn’t the first in which trainees allegedly have turned on their employers violently, and it wasn’t the first time somebody died as a result. Japanese courts seem to be coming around to the conclusion that these workers are being exploited unfairly. Presently, there are 13 lawsuits being heard in Japanese courts brought by representatives of disgruntled trainees, as well as three arbitration cases.

One that could attract attention involves a construction company in Kawasaki that sued some Chinese trainees who had joined a labor union so that the union could negotiate with the company for unpaid wages. The company sued for “confirmation” that it didn’t owe the trainees any money. The trainees then countersued. The lawyer for the labor union is confident that the ruling, due in May, will favor the trainees and expose the reality that they are here to work and thus deserve protection just like any other workers.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fd20100214pb.html

Survey: 14 prefectures against foreign suffrage

by

Fourteen of the nation’s 47 prefectural assemblies oppose or have called for prudence in granting permanent foreign residents the right to vote in local elections, a recent survey by the National Association of Chairpersons of Prefectural Assemblies has found.

Of the 14, eight including Chiba and Ishikawa had previously voted in favor of enfranchising non-Japanese with permanent resident status.

Observers point out that the move represents a revolt by conservatives that control many local assemblies, as legislation granting foreign residents the right to vote grows ever more likely under the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) administration.

Muneyuki Shindo, professor of political science at Chiba University, suspects that the LDP headquarters have asked affiliated assembly members to oppose any legislation granting permanent foreign residents the right to vote in a bid to cause a split within the DPJ-led administration.

“LDP members and those supporting the LDP are dominant in many local assemblies. I suspect that the LDP headquarters is creating a trend in which many of the local assemblies are opposed to the move and trying to cause a split within the administration,” he said.

Among municipal assemblies, at least 13, including the Yamagata Prefecture city of Tendo, had adopted resolutions against giving permanent foreign residents in Japan the right to vote in local elections by the end of last year, according to a survey by the National Association of Chairpersons of City Councils.

On the other hand, the Koganei Municipal Assembly in western Tokyo voted in December in favor of voting rights for non-Japanese with permanent resident status. Only four of its 24 members are affiliated with the LDP.

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20100212p2a00m0na001000c.html

14 Prefectures Oppose Allowing Foreigners to Vote in Local Elections

by

Local assemblies in 14 of Japan’s 47 prefectures have adopted statements in opposition to giving permanent foreign residents in Japan the right to vote in local elections since the Democratic Party of Japan took power last year, a Kyodo News tally showed Monday.

Before the launch last September of the new government under Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama who supports granting local suffrage, 31 prefectural assemblies took an affirmative stance, but six of them have turned against it since then.

The results underscored growing opposition to the government’s policy, with local assembly members, including those belonging to the main opposition Liberal Democratic Party, pressing for the adoption of statements of opposition in prefectural assemblies.

The Japanese government is considering formulating a bill that will grant local suffrage to permanent residents in Japan, and DPJ Secretary General Ichiro Ozawa has expressed the hope that such a bill will pass through parliament in the current Diet session.

But reservations remain within the DPJ-led coalition government about the idea, with collation partner People’s New Party President Shizuka Kamei reiterating his opposition last week.

Explaining the reason behind the Chiba prefectural assembly’s opposition, Naotoshi Takubo, secretary general of the LDP’s local branch in Chiba, said the change of government made it more likely than before that a law will be enacted to accept local suffrage.

“The political situation has changed and we now have a sense of danger for the Hatoyama administration,” he said. The Chiba assembly adopted a supporting statement in 1999 when the coalition government between the LDP and the New Komeito party was launched.

An LDP member of the Ishikawa prefectural assembly expressed a similar view, saying the assembly had been supportive because giving permanent residents the right to vote was not “realistic” before.

The Akita prefectural assembly, which adopted its opposing statement after the change of government, said that “a national consensus has not been built at all.”

The Kagawa prefectural assembly says in its statement that foreign residents should be nationalized first to obtain the right to vote.

The issue of local suffrage for permanent foreign residents in Japan came under the spotlight in 1995 after the Supreme Court said the Constitution does not ban giving the right to vote to foreign nationals with permanent resident status in local elections.

Since 1998, the DPJ, the New Komeito party and the Japanese Communist Party have submitted local suffrage bills, but their passage was blocked by the then ruling LDP.

Japan does not allow permanent residents with foreign nationality, such as those of Korean descent, to vote in local elections, let alone in national elections, despite strong calls among such residents for the right to vote on the grounds that they pay taxes as local residents.

Residents of Korean descent comprise most of the permanent foreign residents in Japan.

Japan grants special permanent resident status to people from the Korean Peninsula and Taiwan who have lived in the country since the time of Japan’s colonial rule over the areas, and to their descendants.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9DO0E5O0