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Japan to adopt new register system for foreigners

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The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications and the Ministry of Justice have decided to abolish the Alien Registration Act’s system of residence administration, and adopt a register system similar to the basic resident register system for Japanese, it has been learned.Registration of foreigners under the act, which formerly involved fingerprinting, will end and certificates of alien registration for special permanent residents such as North and South Koreans residing in Japan will be done away with, though it is yet undecided whether new certificates will be issued in their place.

Both ministries plan to establish a framework plan for the new system by the end of March, and submit related bills to regular Diet sessions next year.

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/national/news/20080125p2a00m0na004000c.html

Japanese gov’t looks at tighter controls on foreigners

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Japan is looking to tighten controls on foreign residents to crack down on undocumented aliens and ensure that all households receive public services, Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama said Friday.

Japan largely sees itself as ethnically homogeneous and has consistently rejected wide-scale immigration despite having one of the world’s lowest birth rates.

It requires foreign residents to carry registration cards which are issued by municipal offices.

The system is often criticized as ineffective as foreigners do not need to re-register when moving and local offices often do not check with the central Immigration Bureau on applicants’ legal status.

“It doesn’t make sense that the foreign registration card is issued to people the Immigration Bureau considers illegal stayers,” Hatoyama told reporters.

He said the ministry is looking at “integrating administration concerning immigration control and registration of foreign residents.”

Specifically, the government is considering a new identification card issued by the central government and requiring residents to register every change of address, a ministry official said.

But the official said the government will likely exempt Koreans and Chinese whose families have resided in Japan for generations and currently still have to carry foreigners’ cards.

Some 700,000 Koreans live in Japan, mostly a legacy of those who immigrated or were enslaved during colonial rule, forming the largest minority group.

Human rights groups have long argued that the registration system prevents people of foreign origin from integrating in Japan.

Local authorities used to collect fingerprints of all foreign residents, even if their families lived in Japan for generations, under a system abolished in 2000.

But Japan last year started fingerprinting foreigners when they enter the country under a US-inspired system to prevent terrorists from entering.

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/world/view/20080125-114770/Japanese-govt-looks-at-tighter-controls-on-foreigners

Komeito leader welcomes Ozawa’s proposal to give foreigners voting rights

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Kazuo Kitagawa, secretary-general of ruling coalition partner Komeito, has voiced support for opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) leader Ichiro Ozawa’s suggestion of considering submitting a bill to give foreigners with permanent residence status the right to vote in local elections.”I would like a bill to be compiled and submitted,” Kitagawa said of the proposed move, adding that there had been arguments against it within the DPJ. “If they compiled it I would welcome that,” he said.

In a news conference on Tuesday, Ozawa said, “I’ve stressed before that the right for foreigners to vote in local elections should be granted. I’ve been criticized by long-time supporters, but the bottom line doesn’t change.”

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/national/news/20080124p2a00m0na011000c.html

Firms urged to do more to help foreigners adapt to Japanese society

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Local governments in central Honshu unveiled a charter on Monday urging companies to help foreign workers adapt to Japanese society, officials said.

The Aichi, Gifu and Mie prefectural governments as well as the Nagoya Municipal Government have worked out the charter in cooperation with local business organizations including the Chubu Economic Federation.

The six-point charter urges companies in the region to improve working conditions for foreign workers, provide them with opportunities to deepen their understanding of Japanese culture and customs and help them and their families to integrate themselves into regional communities.

As of the end of 2006, there were approximately 310,000 registered foreign residents in these prefectures, accounting for about 15 percent of some 2.08 million across the country.

It has been pointed out that the employment of foreign workers, most of them working at factories, is insecure, and that many of them are not covered by social security programs. Moreover, they often have problems involving their children’s education and communication with Japanese residents because of language barriers.

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/national/news/20080121p2a00m0na027000c.html

Paper scandal points to shortcomings of Japan Inc

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Corporate governance is a relatively new concept in Japan, the world’s second-largest economy.

It ranks 38th out of 49 nations, lagging behind South Africa, Venezuela and Peru, according to GovernanceMetrics International, a corporate governance ratings agency.

The scandals come on top of what analysts see as insular management styles in Japan and an insufficient number of outside directors.

Japan’s Nikkei benchmark average was the worst performing index among among major stock markets in 2007.

Restructuring and economic malaise in the late 1990s and early 2000s, as well as the erosion of Japan’s lifetime employment system weakened employee loyalty, giving rise to whistleblowers as well as making consumers more outspoken.

The paper scandal, which has enveloped other major domestic paper makers, was revealed by a whistleblower, said TV broadcaster TBS which broke the news.

It follows cases where firms sold food past its expiry date — mostly by small firms but also affecting McDonald’s Japan, which said some of its stores may have done so.

Staffing agency Goodwill Group Inc suspended on Friday all its branch operations for several months — a government penalty for breaching employment regulations when it sent out temporary workers out. It also withdrew from nursing care services last year after it inflated staff numbers.

Other high-profile scandals last year included the failure of Japan’s biggest English language school chain Nova, after fraudulent advertising.

“There have been so many scandals, I guess there are worries about what industry is going to be next,” said Takeo Omura, a corporate governance analyst at the Daiwa Institute of Research.

http://www.forbes.com/reuters/feeds/reuters/2008/01/18/2008-01-18T105019Z_01_T49215_RTRIDST_0_JAPAN-SCANDALS.html

Growing Reliance on Temps Holds Back Japan’s Rebound

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Firms Increasingly Add Part-Time Workers; Spending Power Lags

The rise of temps began in the 1990s as Japan entered its long slump and low-cost nations such as China posed unprecedented competition. To compete, Japanese companies shifted large chunks of their manufacturing capacities overseas. At home, cost-cutting came slowly, partly because layoffs were taboo.

Then, labor-law deregulation gave companies a new way to restructure, while keeping some of their treasured manufacturing capabilities in Japan.

Until the late ’90s, worker-friendly laws forbade temporary-labor contracts except for a few specialized areas, such as computer programming. A change in 1999 allowed temp agencies to dispatch workers to many more types of jobs. And in 2004, manufacturers were allowed to use workers sent by temporary-help agencies.

That change encouraged companies such as Toyota and Canon Inc. to start hiring temps en masse. At Canon and its subsidiaries and affiliates, the number of part-timers and temps nearly quadrupled from 2003 to last June, to about 40,000, according to securities filings. Full-timers are more numerous, at 127,000, but their numbers rose a more modest 24%.

Temps find it difficult to become full-time. When the economy began recovering about five years ago and companies needed more full-time workers, they got them by hiring fresh graduates. In a 2006 survey by staffing agency Pasona Group, two-thirds of companies responding said they were reluctant to make part-timers or temps full time. Many firms cited a lack of skills. Temps rarely get much training from their employers.

Longtime temps say conditions have deteriorated. Yoko Mitome, 49, was a sales executive at a travel agency for two decades, jetting about and planning package tours to exotic spots. She lost this $50,000-a-year job in 1998 as the employer sought to cope with falling sales near the bottom of Japan’s long slump. She got a temp job as an operator for international calls at a unit of phone company KDDI Corp.

Since then, the hourly wages have stayed fairly stable but the company has stopped paying transportation expenses and good-attendance bonuses, has shortened breaks and has shortened employment contracts to three or six months from a year.

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB119939511325465729-lMyQjAxMDE4OTA5NzMwOTc1Wj.html

Interac in the News – Punishment for Being Sick

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An article from January, 2008 about the fact that Interac ALTs do not get all of what they are entitled to by law.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20080105f1.html

THIS FOREIGN LAND
Assistant language teachers in trying times

By KANAKO TAKAHARA
Staff writer
Last of four parts

In November, Samantha Bouton, an assistant language teacher working at a public elementary school in the rural town of Shibayama, Chiba Prefecture, had a fever of 38.5 degrees and was diagnosed as suffering bronchitis.

Because of her illness, Bouton, a 25-year-old U.S. native from Oregon who has been teaching in Japan’s public schools since 2004, had to take leave for two weeks.

But her employer, Interac, a temp staff dispatch agency and leading provider of ALTs in Japan, told her she had already used up her seven days of annual paid leave — less than the 12 days she is entitled to under labor law — to cover the days she was sick.

Read more

Assistant language teachers in trying times

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Meanwhile, local boards of education have started to realize they cannot get competent, experienced teachers either by subcontracting to private firms or through the JET program because many of them come to Japan just out of college without any background in education.

Taito Ward in Tokyo said it plans to stop outsourcing ALTs to private companies. It is considering advertising for candidates on its Web site and asking them to give a presentation on the kind of lessons they plan to offer as part of its screening process.

The city of Musashino on the outskirts of Tokyo plans to seek applicants among native English speakers who live in the area instead of subcontracting from private companies.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20080105f1.html

Attention G-communication teachers and staff

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G-Education and its parent company G-communication repeated NOVA’s pattern of broken promises when they suddenly announced the dismissals of 800 former NOVA teachers and staff who had been promised work at G-comm in January. The declaration, coming just a week after the company president publicly repeated assurances of re-employment, leaves many facing once again the problems of housing, visa extensions, and no job.

The NUGW Tokyo Nambu office will be open Sunday, January 6, from 2:00 to 6:00 pm, for G-communications teachers and staff who wish to join GUTS (G Union of Teachers and Staff). The union is open to those who were promised employment at the company, including people currently working at G, and those who received letters of dismissal during December. We have submitted demands that G-comm honour its committment to full re-employment; join us to insist that G-comm take responsibility for its actions.

Agencies reap tidy profits as temp numbers soar

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A record-high 3.21 million people worked at least one temporary job in fiscal 2006, an increase of 26.1 percent–another record high–from the previous fiscal year, according to a Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry report.

The annual turnover of temporary agencies was about 5.42 trillion yen–an increase of 34.3 percent from fiscal 2005, the report said.

However, the 30 percent to 40 percent margins being creamed off by these agencies has come under attack from temporary worker labor unions and other groups. Under the Temporary Staffing Services Law, owners of temporary staffing agencies must report once a year to the ministry on matters such as the number of temps they dispatch and the dispatch fees they receive. A total of 41,966 businesses made such reports to the ministry in fiscal 2006.

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/business/20071230TDY02308.htm