Former national railway workers have mixed feelings about Friday’s settlement of a 23-year-old dispute over Japan Railway companies’ refusal to hire them when Japanese National Railways was privatized in 1987.
“Sixty of our coworkers have passed away. I deeply regret I can’t share the joy of the resolution with them, but we can embark on a new chapter in our lives,” Shinji Takahashi, chairman of the National Railway Workers Union (Kokuro), said Friday during a press conference at the union’s headquarters in Shimbashi, Tokyo.
Takahashi also said Kokuro would seek to reach an agreement with the JR companies over the issue of reemployment, through labor-management talks.
“I want each JR firm to hire [union members] from a humanitarian point of view,” he said.
After JNR was privatized in 1987, JR companies did not hire a total of 1,047 JNR workers. Because 966 of them were Kokuro members, the union said they had been discriminated against. An executive of East Japan Railway Co. said he felt strange about the government’s proposal to pay an average settlement of 22 million yen per person. Now in his 50s, he remembers when about 70,000 workers left the railway industry at the time of the privatization.
“One of my colleagues, who loved being a conductor, was holding back tears when he had to join another industry,” the executive said. “Thinking about people like him, it’s hard for me to unreservedly be happy for the people who will be released from years of struggle.”
Reluctance on rehiring
Kokuro has been demanding “employment, pensions and settlements,” but a solution to the reemployment issue has yet to be found due to the reluctance of JR companies.
When the national railway was broken up and privatized, JR companies downsized their workforces by about 70,000 people and transferred employees to the Tokyo metropolitan area from such far-distant locations as Hokkaido and Kyushu.
The companies feel it would be difficult for those who went through the downsizing and transfers to accept the hiring of the union members. Also, the Supreme Court ruled in 2003 that JR companies have no responsibility to hire the workers in the case.
According to the plaintiffs, about 260 of the 910 who will receive settlement money from the government want to be reemployed. In the agreement, however, the government asks JR companies to hire only about 200 people.
This limited recruitment, together with changes in the amount of settlement money, gives the public the impression that the resolution is a murky political settlement.
Momentum gathered in 2000 for a political resolution, but a new lawsuit filed by the union side and other considerations prevented it.
JR workplaces change with the times, so the longer it takes to reach a resolution, the harder it will be for the plaintiffs to return to railway jobs.
What is required now is to face the reality that the prolonged conflict is making the people involved suffer, and to work to build healthy union-management relations.
23-yr dispute over JR’s refusal to hire union workers to be settled
Representatives of union workers decided Friday to accept a proposal in which the government would pay each worker roughly 22 million yen, bringing to an end a 23-year-old dispute over the refusal of Japan Railway companies to hire them.
The ruling parties and the opposition New Komeito party presented the roughly 20 billion yen settlement package, which was worked out with the government on Thursday, to a union and other related bodies on Friday morning, and the union side confirmed its acceptance in the afternoon.
The four parties had proposed asking the JR companies to hire some 200 former workers of the state-run Japanese National Railways, which was privatized and divided into the companies in 1987.
But given the reluctance of JR companies to hire the former workers, the government said in its settlement proposal that it cannot guarantee employment for every former worker because it cannot force the companies to hire them.
The four parties’ suggestion that subsidies be paid to some of the JR companies if they agree to hire the former workers did not make it into the proposal.
Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama “approved the outline” of the proposal, transport minister Seiji Maehara told reporters after briefing the prime minister on it in the afternoon.
Maehara is expected to announce the government’s acceptance of the deal shortly.
Under the proposal, Japan Railway Construction, Transport and Technology Agency, an organization that inherited debts from JNR, would pay roughly 22 million yen per worker to 910 households involved in the litigation. The households consist of plaintiffs and surviving family members.
The plaintiffs are among the 1,047 workers that JNR’s successor companies refused to hire upon JNR’s privatization, many of them members of the National Railway Workers Union, known as Kokuro.
The settlement money would be paid if the plaintiffs drop their cases.
Of the 20 billion yen to be paid to the former workers, roughly 14.2 billion yen would go toward paying for the damages awarded in a ruling in March 2009 and litigation fees, and about 5.8 billion yen for Kokuro and other related bodies to help the former workers find jobs.
Last month, the Democratic Party of Japan and its two coalition partners, the Social Democratic Party and the People’s New Party, as well as New Komeito had proposed to the government a settlement package that would pay about 24 million yen per worker.
The government then presented the parties with a plan to pay roughly 20 million yen per worker, after considering the amounts of compensation paid in previous liability cases in which the state was involved. The amount was later raised to 22 million yen per worker after negotiations between them.
The ALT Scam
Cross-posted from the Fukuoka General Union.
Throughout Japan Boards of Education have been moving away from the JET program in favour of outsourcing ALT jobs to dispatch companies. In Fukuoka it has come to the point that most BOEs subcontract out their work.
This page is aimed to shed some light on the current systems that operate to the detriment of ALTs – who are practically all non-Japanese (NJ).
Japan’s rank down in intl sex gap report
Japan’s ranking in a World Economic Forum report on the equality of the sexes was recently revised down 26 places to 101st among 134 nations, reflecting objections raised by a Japanese women’s organization and others about the initial assessment made in October.
The reassessment by the Geneva-based forum in its annual Gender Gap Report left Japan at the lowest level among developed countries, with the gap especially pronounced in economic and political fields.
Japan had been ranked 80th among 115 countries in 2006, 91st among 128 nations in 2007 and 98th among 130 countries in 2008.
The World Economic Forum has ranked different countries in its Global Gender Gap Index since 2006.
Japan’s overall ranking in the index published at the end of October shot up to 75th.
The change was especially startling in the professional and technical workers section of the economic participation and opportunity category, where Japan’s ratio of women was ranked first, up from 69th the previous year. In the section concerning legislators, senior officials and managers, the ranking catapulted from 101st in 2008 to 6th.
However, the rankings raised some eyebrows in Japan. The Working Women’s Network, a civic group, suggested the rankings did not reflect reality and sent a written inquiry to the WEF, quoting statistics compiled by the United Nations and the Japanese government.
Believing the WEF’s citation data must have been wrong, Kanazawa University Associate Prof.
Yayoi Sugihashi, an expert on economic statistics, recalculated the figures using the database of the International Labor Organization and informed the WEF of mistakes in the index.
On March 24, Sugihashi received a reply from the WEF that said the index had been revised as Sugihashi had indicated and Japan’s ranking corrected down to 101st on its Web site.
“I think the WEF had little choice but to make the correction,” Sugihashi said. “The ranking is very influential–it’s sometimes cited in government white papers.”
http://www.asiaone.com/News/Latest+News/Asia/Story/A1Story20100407-208934.html
Ministers mull settlement for JNR unionists
Transport minister Seiji Maehara said he and two other Cabinet ministers finalized a plan to settle a 23-year-old dispute over the refusal by Japan Railway companies to hire unionized workers from the former national railway.
Maehara said that he, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Naoto Kan and Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano held talks after a Cabinet meeting Tuesday morning and agreed on the plan to settle the workers’ compensation claims.
Maehara said he will brief Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama after obtaining consent from the Democratic Party of Japan, its two coalition partners and New Komeito.
The three ruling parties and the opposition party last month proposed a settlement package worth ¥23 billion to resolve the dispute, which stems from the 1987 privatization of the Japanese National Railways.
The proposal also asks JR companies to hire some 200 former JNR workers.
Hatoyama said at the time that the government had to study the proposal seriously, also stressing that many former JNR workers had endured hardship for the past 23 years.
The newly created railway companies refused to hire 1,047 workers, many of whom were members of the National Railway Workers Union (Kokuro).
The compromise deal urges Japan Railway Construction, Transport and Technology Agency, an organization that inherited JNR’s debts, to pay some ¥23 billion as settlement money to former JNR workers.
Japan, U.N. share blind spot on ‘migrants’
I wish to speak about the treatment of those of “foreign” origin and appearance in Japan, such as white and non-Asian people. Simply put, we are not officially registered — or even counted sometimes — as genuine residents. We are not treated as taxpayers, not protected as consumers, not seen as ethnicities even in the national census. According to government polls and surveys, we do not even deserve the same human rights as Japanese. The view of “foreigner” as “only temporary in Japan” is a blind spot even the United Nations seems to share, but I will get to that later.
First, an overview: The number of non-Japanese (NJ) on visas of three months or longer has increased since 1990 from about 1 million to over two. Permanent residents (PR) number over 1 million, meaning about half of all registered NJ can stay here forever. Given how hard PR is to get — about five years if married to a Japanese, 10 years if not — a million NJ permanent residents are clearly not a temporary part of Japanese society.
Moreover, this does not count the estimated half-million or so naturalized Japanese citizens (I am one of them). Nor does this count children of international marriages, about 40,000 annually. Mathematically, if each couple has two children, eventually that will mean 80,000 more ethnically diverse Japanese children; over a decade, 800,000 — almost a million again. Not all of these children of diverse backgrounds will “look Japanese.”
What’s more, we don’t know Japan’s true diversity because the Census Bureau only surveys for nationality. This means when I fill out the census, I write down “Japanese” for my nationality, but I cannot indicate my ethnicity as a “white Japanese,” or a “Japanese of American extraction” (amerikakei nihonjin). I believe this is by design — because the politics of identity in Japan are all about “monoculturality and monoethnicity.” Given modern Japan’s emerging immigration and assimilation, this is a fiction. The official conflation of Japanese nationality and ethnicity is incorrect, yet our government refuses to collect data that would correct that.
The point is we cannot tell who is “Japanese” just by looking at them. This means that whenever distinctions are made between “foreigner” and “Japanese,” be it police racial profiling or “Japanese only” signs, some Japanese citizens will also be affected. Thus we need a law against racial discrimination in Japan — not only because it will help noncitizens assimilate into Japan, but also because it will protect Japanese against xenophobia, bigotry and exclusionism, against the discrimination that is “deep and profound” and “practiced undisturbed in Japan,” according to U.N. Rapporteur Doudou Diene in 2005 and 2006.
There are some differences in viewpoint between my esteemed colleagues here today and the people I am trying to speak for. Japan’s minorities as definable under the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), including Ainu, Ryukyuans, zainichi special-permanent- resident ethnic Koreans and Chinese, and burakumin, will speak to you as people who have been here for a long time — much longer than people like me, of course. Their claims are based upon time-honored and genuine grievances that have never been properly redressed. For ease of understanding, I will call them the “oldcomers.”
I will try to speak on behalf of the “newcomers,” i.e., people who came here relatively recently to make a life in Japan. Of course both oldcomers and newcomers contribute to Japanese society, in terms of taxes, service and culture, for example. But it is we newcomers who really need a Japanese law against racial discrimination, because we, the people who are seen because of our skin color as “foreigners,” are often singled out for our own variant of discriminatory treatment. Examples in brief:
1. Housing, accommodation
One barrier many newcomers face is finding an apartment. According to the Mainichi Shimbun (Jan. 8), on average in Tokyo it takes 15 visits to realtors for an NJ to find an apartment. Common experience — this is all we have because there is no government study of the problem — dictates that agents generally phrase the issue to landlords as, “The renter is a foreigner, is that OK?” This overt discrimination happens with impunity in Japan. One Osaka realtor even advertises apartments as “gaijin allowed,” a sales point at odds with the status quo. People who face discriminatory landlords can only take them to court. This means years, money for lawyers and court fees, and an uncertain outcome — when all you need is a place to live, now.Another barrier is hotels. Lodgings are expressly forbidden by Hotel Management Law Article 5 to refuse customers unless rooms are full, there is a clear threat of contagious disease, or an issue of “public morals.” However, government surveys indicate that 27 percent of all Japanese hotels do not want foreign guests, period. Not to be outdone, Fukushima Prefecture Tourist Information advertised the fact that 318 of their member hotels refuse NJ. Thus even when a law technically forbids exclusionism, the government will not enforce it. On the contrary, official bodies will even promote excluders.
2. Racial profiling by police
Another rude awakening happens when NJ walk down the street. All NJ (but not citizens) must carry ID cards at all times or face possible criminal charges and incarceration. So Japanese police will target and stop people who “look foreign” in public, sometimes forcefully and rudely, and demand personal identification. This very alienating process of “carding” can happen when walking while white, cycling while foreign-looking, using public transportation while multiethnic, or waiting for arrivals at airports while colored. One person has apparently been “carded,” sometimes through physical force, more than 50 times in one year, and 125 times over 10 years.Police justify this as a hunt for foreign criminals and visa over-stayers, or cite special security measures or campaigns. However, these “campaigns” are products of government policies depicting NJ as “terrorists, criminals and carriers of infectious diseases.” None of these things, of course, is contingent upon nationality. Moreover, since 2007, all noncitizens are fingerprinted every time they re-enter Japan. This includes newcomer PRs, going further than the US-VISIT program, which does not refingerprint Green Card holders. However, the worst example of bad social science is the National Research Institute of Police Science, which spends taxpayer money on researching “foreign DNA” for racial profiling at crime scenes.
In sum, Japan’s police see NJ as “foreign agents” in both senses of the word. They are systematically taking measures to deal with NJ as a social problem, not as fellow residents or immigrants.
3. Exclusion as ‘residents’
Japan’s registration system, meaning the current koseki family registry and juminhyo residency certificate systems, refuse to list NJ as “spouse” or “family member” because they are not citizens. Officially, NJ residing here are not registered as “residents” (jumin), even though they pay residency taxes (juminzei) like anyone else. Worse, some local governments (such as Tokyo’s Nerima Ward) do not even count NJ in their population tallies. This is the ultimate in invisibility, and it is government-sanctioned.
4. ‘Japanese only’ exclusionWith no law against racial discrimination, “No foreigners allowed” signs have appeared nationwide, at places such as stores, restaurants, hotels, public bathhouses, bars, discos, an eyeglass outlet, a ballet school, an Internet cafe, a billiards hall, a women’s boutique — even in publicity for a newspaper subscription service. Regardless, the government has said repeatedly to the U.N. that Japan does not need a racial discrimination law because of our effective judicial system. That is untrue.
For example, in the Otaru onsen case (1999-2005), where two NJ and one naturalized Japanese (myself) were excluded from a public bathhouse, judges refused to rule these exclusions were illegal due to racial discrimination. They called it “unrational discrimination.” Moreover, the judiciary refused to enforce relevant international treaty as law, or punish the negligent Otaru City government for ineffective measures against racial discrimination. The Supreme Court refused to hear the case.
Furthermore, in 2006, an openly racist shopkeeper refused an African-American customer entry, yet the Osaka District Court ruled in favor of the owner! Japan needs a criminal law, with enforceable punishments, because the present judicial system will not fix this.
5. Unfettered hate speech
There is also the matter of the cyberbullying of minorities and prejudiced statements made by our politicians over the years. Other NGOs will talk more about the anti-Korean and anti-Chinese hate speech during the current debate about granting local suffrage rights to permanent residents.I would instead like to briefly mention some media, such as the magazine “Underground Files of Crimes by Gaijin” (Gaijin Hanzai Ura Fairu (2007)) and “PR Suffrage will make Japan Disappear” (Gaikokujin Sanseiken de Nihon ga Nakunaru Hi (2010)). Both these books stretch their case to talk about an innate criminality or deviousness in the foreign element, and “Underground Files” even cites things that are not crimes, such as dating Japanese women. It also includes epithets like “nigger,” racist caricatures and ponderings on whether Korean pudenda smell like kimchi. This is hate speech. And it is not illegal in Japan. You could even find it on sale in convenience stores.
ConclusionIn light of all the above, the Japanese government’s stance towards the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is easily summarized: The Ainu, Ryukyuans and burakumin are citizens, therefore they don’t fall under the CERD because they are protected by the Japanese Constitution. However, the zainichis and newcomers are not citizens, therefore they don’t get protection from the CERD either. Thus, our government effectively argues, the CERD does not cover anyone in Japan.
Well, what about me? Or our children? Are there really no ethnic minorities with Japanese citizenship in Japan?
In conclusion, I would like to thank the U.N. for investigating our cases. On March 16, the CERD Committee issued some very welcome recommendations in its review. However, may I point out that the U.N. still made a glaring oversight.
During the committee’s questioning of Japan last Feb. 24 and 25, very little mention was made of the CERD’s “unenforcement” in Japan’s judiciary and criminal code. Furthermore, almost no mention was made of “Japanese only” signs, the most indefensible violations of the CERD.
Both Japan and the U.N. have a blind spot in how they perceive Japan’s minorities. Newcomers are never couched as residents of or immigrants to Japan, but rather as “foreign migrants.” The unconscious assumption seems to be that 1) foreign migrants have a temporary status in Japan, and 2) Japan has few ethnically diverse Japanese citizens.
Time for an update. Look at me. I am a Japanese. The government put me through a very rigorous and arbitrary test for naturalization, and I passed it. People like me are part of Japan’s future. When the U.N. makes their recommendations, please have them reflect how Japan must face up to its multicultural society. Please recognize us newcomers as a permanent part of the debate.
The Japanese government will not. It says little positive about us, and allows very nasty things to be said by our politicians, policymakers and police. It’s about time we all recognized the good that newcomers are doing for our home, Japan. Please help us.
‘Non-Japanese only’ Okinawa eatery turns tables
Jon Mitchell explores why one restaurateur has effectively banned Japanese patrons
Okinawa Prefecture is home to three-quarters of America’s military bases in Japan. The vast majority of these, including Kadena Air Base, Torii Station and the contentious Marine Corps installation at Futenma, are located in the central part of the main island.
Despite overwhelming Okinawan opposition to the presence of the United States military, open animosity towards American servicemen is remarkably rare here. One of the few places where it is experienced, though, is in central Okinawa’s entertainment districts. Japanese-owned clubs and bars regularly turn away American customers, and some of them display English signs stating “members only” and “private club” in order to exclude unwanted foreign patrons. With Japan’s laws on racial discrimination tending towards the ambiguous, transforming a business into a private club has become a common way to circumvent any potential complaints to the Bureau of Human Rights.
Under these circumstances, the notices on the door of Sushi Zen, a small restaurant located at the edge of Chatan Town’s fishing port, are not unusual: “This store has a members-only policy. Entry is restricted to members.” However, what is different is the fact that they’re written in Japanese, and designed to keep away Japanese customers. Furthermore, Sushi Zen’s owner is not a xenophobic foreign expatriate, but a soft-spoken Japanese man named Yukio Okuhama…
Migrant children struggle in public schools
With the recession taking a particularly heavy toll on migrant communities, many schools for children of Japanese-Brazilian and other backgrounds have closed their doors after struggling through falling enrollments and nonpayment of fees.
The closures have forced many children of migrants to enter the public school system, a daunting prospect for those whose entire schooling has been conducted in another language and who don’t speak Japanese at home.
To help them better integrate into the public school system, the education ministry launched the “Rainbow Bridge classroom” project last fall, providing additional Japanese-language instruction.
But the ministry is struggling to win over migrant parents, many of whom resist the idea of sending their children to Japanese schools.
There were about 90 Brazilian schools across the country at the end of 2008. The number had fallen to around 60 this February. Many parents lost their jobs, leaving them unable to pay their children’s tuition. Others returned with their families to their home countries.
The Colegio Brasil Japao, a Brazilian school in Minato Ward, Nagoya, had 80 students at the end of 2008, but the number dropped to 49 at the end of last year. Each month, 10 to 20 students failed to pay a monthly fee of about ¥30,000, forcing the school to post a monthly loss of around ¥800,000.
“We have tried our best, but there is a limit to what we can endure,” said the school’s principal, Carlos Shinoda, at a January meeting to notify guardians of the suspension of some classes.
None of the parents said they wanted to send their children to Japanese schools.
Yojiro Arlindo Ogasawara, 40, whose three children attend the Brazilian school, said, “If they attend a Japanese school, they will be left behind academically while trying to learn the Japanese language.”
He continued to send his children to the school, even after losing his job, because he said his eldest son had been bullied at a Japanese nursery school, where he was told, “Foreigners are stupid.”
Many guardians are worried that their children will be treated only as “guests” in public school classrooms unless they know the Japanese language.
“Enrolling in Japanese schools is the last resort,” said a 38-year-old mother. “I would like to continue to send my daughter to a classroom where the atmosphere is warm.”
Thirty-two organizations, including boards of education and nonprofit organizations, were running Rainbow Bridge classrooms in Ibaraki, Gunma, Saitama, Kanagawa, Yamanashi, Nagano, Gifu, Shizuoka, Aichi, Mie, Shiga and Okayama prefectures as of February, to teach Japanese to foreign children. Portuguese lessons are also offered.
“Public schools are given the cold shoulder by foreigners because of experiences and rumors of bullying,” said Akio Nakayama, representative in Japan of the International Organization for Migration, which is promoting the project at the request of the education ministry. “A coordinator at each classroom is visiting families to urge them to take part in the class.”
Besides Brazilians, there are foreign children who can’t attend public schools because they require special assistance, and even if they are enrolled in such schools many refuse to attend.
Although the Rainbow Bridge role in classrooms is becoming increasingly important, Nakayama pointed to the need for schools to do more to assist foreign children.
“In addition to the creation of a framework by Japanese public schools to receive and support foreign children, roles like the one performed by coordinators at Rainbow Bridge classrooms should be institutionalized,” he said.
Such classrooms accept not only Brazilian but also other foreign children.
Group: Hunger strike worked
Supporters of inmates held at the Nishi-Nihon Japan Immigration Center said a hunger strike in March has led to more provisional releases for those with health problems.
But immigration center officials denied any connection between the hunger strike and the provisional releases.
About 70 male inmates began a hunger strike March 8, demanding that those with serious health problems be given provisional releases to receive medical care.
A citizens group aiding the inmates said that after the hunger strike, a Pakistani man whose weight had plummeted due to depression and fever was granted a provisional release.
Another Pakistani man taken to a hospital in December after falling unconscious from extremely high blood pressure was also told he would be given a provisional release.
The two had been confined at the immigration center for over a year. The support group had been requesting a provisional release for them since late last year because of their failing health. The request was initially rejected in February.
Japanese firms adopt a global appearance
With overseas markets increasingly seen as the key to their survival, Japanese companies are adopting a more “international” look at home involving changes that would have been unheard of years ago.
[A few] long-held practices in hiring have been scrapped, as have [some] limits on positions available to non-Japanese at the companies’ head offices in Tokyo and other Japanese cities.
Currently, nearly 140,000 foreign nationals work at businesses in Japan.
According to a labor ministry-commissioned survey conducted by the Fujitsu Research Institute on about 800 companies from September through October last year, nearly 40 percent of those companies have hired foreigners with high-level knowledge and skills, including engineers, in recent years.
But 58 companies have suspended their employment of foreigners, showing that language barrier and corporate culture clashes remain a potential problem.
In a country where company loyalty remains relatively strong, 25 percent of those companies said they stopped hiring foreigners because previous hires had left for other companies offering better working conditions.
In addition, 20 percent said they lacked supervisors who could work effectively with the foreign employees.
But the trend has been to expand hiring of non-Japanese as the domestic market shrinks and the declining birthrate is expected to lead to a huge shortage in demand in future years.
Meanwhile, Internet shopping site operator Rakuten Inc. regards 2010 as the year to develop into a truly global company.
In February, Rakuten began distributing papers written in English instead of Japanese at its Monday morning executive meetings, a policy that soon covered meetings attended by all employees.
And in March, the dozens of participants at the executive meetings were required to speak in English.
Rakuten assigns graduates of overseas universities to technological divisions in which they are required to improve their Japanese-language skills and learn in-house culture.
Those non-Japanese are expected to eventually play key roles in Rakuten’s offices overseas.