The Immigration Bureau has effectively scrapped a guideline that compelled foreign residents to present health insurance cards when applying to extend visa status, it has been learned.
The new guideline, due to be enforced on April 1, states it would have requested non-Japanese to enroll in the social insurance system and present health insurance cards at the application window when reporting changes in their status of residence or when renewing visas.
But the newly revised immigration guideline also states that failing to present health insurance cards would not adversely affect decisions by the bureau on the issues of changing residence status or renewing visas. [Japanese as well as] non-Japanese are required by law to enroll in the social insurance system.
Immigration
Police crack down on legal workers who help foreigners illegally work in Japan
Law enforcers are stepping up their crackdown on administrative scriveners who help foreigners illegally work or get falsely married in Japan, officials said.
The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) has set up a liaison council with the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and the Justice Ministry’s Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau to deal with the matter.
Since 2006, the MPD has arrested at least five administrative scriveners for helping foreigners illegally obtain work visas in Japan in violation of the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law.
However, a senior investigator with the MPD admits that it has been forced to abandon forming a case against many others suspected of filing false applications for work visas on behalf of foreigners, because they denied that their clients were seeking false applications.
To deal with the situation, the MPD is trying to invoke a law to regulate the work of administrative scriveners.
Many administrative scriveners who are suspected of involvement in false applications fail to preserve documents recording the names and addresses of their clients and the amounts of fees they receive from their clients, even though the law requires them to do so. Violators face a fine of up to 1 million yen.
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20100302p2a00m0na006000c.html
DPJ postpones bill to grant local voting rights to permanent foreign residents
The government has abandoned proposing a bill to grant local voting rights to permanent foreign residents in Japan during the current Diet session, in the face of intense opposition from coalition partner People’s New Party (PNP).
“It’s extremely difficult for the government to sponsor such a bill due to differences over the issue between the ruling coalition partners,” said Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Kazuhiro Haraguchi.
Now, the attention is focused on whether ruling and opposition parties will launch a campaign to pass the bill as legislator-initiated legislation.
The suffrage bill was expected to be based on a draft that the DPJ prepared before it took over the reins of government, and it proposes to grant local suffrage to foreign residents from countries with which Japan has diplomatic ties. The DPJ’s proposal will cover some 420,000 Korean and other special permanent residents — both those who arrived in Japan before World War II and their offspring — as well as about 490,000 foreign residents from other countries.
The campaign to enact legislation on foreign suffrage in local elections dates back to 15 years ago.
Encouraged by the 1995 Supreme Court ruling that “foreign suffrage is not banned by the Constitution,” over 1,500 local assemblies adopted a resolution to support and promote legislation to grant local suffrage to permanent foreign residents in Japan — some 910,000 people as of the end of 2008.
However, as the passage of the bill becomes a real possibility along with the change of government, various views have emerged.
The National Association of Chairpersons of Prefectural Assemblies held an interparty discussion meeting on local suffrage for permanent foreign residents on Feb. 9 in Tokyo.
“It’s not the time for national isolation,” said Azuma Konno, a House of Councillors member of the DPJ, as he explained the party’s policy on the legislation at the meeting, raising massive jeers and objections from participants.
“We can introduce legislation which will make it easier for foreigners to be naturalized,” said Kazuyoshi Hatakeyama, speaker of the Miyagi Prefectural Assembly, while Kochi Prefectural Assembly Vice Speaker Eiji Morita countered, saying: “The DPJ excluded the suffrage bill from its manifesto for last summer’s election.”
The Mie Prefectural Assembly, in which DPJ members form the largest political group, was the only chapter to support the granting of local suffrage to permanent foreign residents.
“The argument against suffrage rings of ethnic nationalism,” said Speaker Tetsuo Mitani.
The fact that the DPJ’s legislation plan met with strong opposition during the meeting highlighted the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)’s strong sway over local assemblies, where its members manage to remain as the largest political group.
Opponents of the bill argue that it is unreasonable for the central government to make decisions on regional electoral systems while pledging to promote decentralization of authority. Furthermore, the national association of chairpersons adopted a special resolution calling on the government to focus more on the opinions of local assemblies on Jan. 21.
During the LDP Policy Research Council’s national meeting on Feb. 10, LDP lawmakers instructed its prefectural chapters to promote resolutions opposing foreign suffrage at respective local assemblies, in a bid to undermine the Hatoyama administration and the DPJ in cooperation with regional politics.
According to the chairpersons’ association, before the change of government last summer, a total of 34 prefectures supported the granting of local suffrage to foreign residents; however, eight reversed their positions after the DPJ came into power. The trend is expected to accelerate further, pointing to antagonism between the nation’s two largest political parties, as well as the conflicts between the DPJ-led national government and local governments.
The Chiba Prefectural Assembly, which adopted the resolution supporting foreign suffrage in 1999, reversed its position in December last year.
“We cannot believe they overturned their own decision,” said an official at Mindan’s Chiba Prefecture branch. The branch, which has a close relationship with LDP lawmakers, had owed the prefecture’s previous decision to support the suffrage bill to the efforts of LDP members in the prefectural assembly.
The Ibaraki Prefectural Assembly, too, is one of the eight local assemblies that went from for to against suffrage. Mindan’s Ibaraki branch has also expressed its disappointment, saying: “Assembly members are using the issue as part of their campaign strategy for the coming election.”
According to the National Diet Library, foreign residents are granted local suffrage in most major developed countries.
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20100227p2a00m0na009000c.html
No one-size-fits-all for foreign suffrage
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.”
Foreign trainees easily exploited as bosses take advantage of system
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.
Survey: 14 prefectures against foreign suffrage
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
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.
New visa rule on insurance to be deleted
Aim is to ease foreigners’ concerns
The Immigration Bureau is planning to change a new guideline for foreign residents to ease concerns that those without social insurance will be forced to choose between losing their visa and entering the insurance system, a bureau official said Monday.
But some foreigners warn the move won’t be enough to entirely free them of the risk of being forced to enter the insurance system.
The wording of the guideline, which is to be enforced April 1, currently stipulates that foreign residents must present their health insurance card when reporting changes to or renewing their residential status. It is the last of the guideline’s eight items.
“The bureau will delete item No. 8 by the end of March, and ‘lightly mention’ the need to present a health insurance card in the introductory passage of the guideline,” Immigration Bureau spokesman Yoshikazu Iimura told The Japan Times. “The wording will be in a manner to eliminate foreign residents’ concerns that their visas won’t be renewed if they don’t have insurance.”
The bureau will try to persuade foreigners who don’t have the card to enter the social insurance system by giving out brochures, but not having the insurance won’t affect the bureau’s decision whether to grant a visa, he said.
Foreigners win ¥17 million for trainee abuses
The Kumamoto District Court awarded more than ¥17 million in damages Friday to four Chinese interns who were forced to work long hours for low wages in Kumamoto Prefecture.
The court ordered that the union Plaspa Apparel, which arranged the trainee work for the four, to pay ¥4.4 million and that the actual employer, a sewing agency, pay ¥12.8 million in unpaid wages.
It is the first ruling that held a job broker for foreign trainees liable for their hardships, according to lawyers representing the four interns.
The four female Chinese trainees, aged 22 to 25, engaged in sewing from early morning to late evening with only two or three days off a month after arriving in Japan in 2006, according to the court.
Guiding hand for Indonesian nurses
Program helps hospital ease assimilation for newcomers
Cultural barriers faced by Indonesian nurses who come to this country to work are gradually being lowered, but the government has yet to help the Japanese hospital staff adapt, according to Keio University professors who recently launched an in-house training program to teach the employees how best to welcome the new additions.
Staff at Saiseikai Yokohamashi Tobu Hospital in Kanagawa Prefecture received training earlier this month from Naomi Sugimoto, a professor of communications studies in Keio’s faculty of nursing and medical care, prior to the arrival of two Indonesian nurses last week.
“The government runs training courses for the Indonesian nurses, but I saw that there was no training for the Japanese staff who are taking them in,” Sugimoto said. “The fact that hospitals are accepting foreign employees for the first time means that their staff have never worked with foreigners, so they are very nervous.”