Some 200 Brazilian workers Sunday protested over layoffs by Japanese companies, which are forcing many of them to leave the country despite their community having been integrated in Japan for more than two decades.
The demonstrators, who included mothers with their children [and also included members of the Nambu Foreign Workers Caucus], marched through the centre of Tokyo’s glitzy Ginza shopping district, calling for the government’s support for stable employment.
The crowd, many holding Brazilian flags, demanded “employment for 320,000” Brazilians in Japan.
“We are Brazilians!” they shouted in unison. “Companies must stop using us like disposable labour.”
Since 1990 Japan has given special working visas to hundreds of thousands of Brazilians of Japanese descent, many of whom have taken up temporary positions as manual labourers in factories.
Amid the global economic downturn, however, many are being laid off and being forced to return to Brazil. They are often overshadowed by the 85,000 Japanese contract workers also said to be losing their jobs by March.
“No matter how hard we worked in Japan, we are being cut off because we are contract labourers,” said Midori Tateishi, 38, who came to Japan nearly 20 years ago. “Many of us are totally at a loss with children and a housing loan.”
Last year, Japan and Brazil marked the 100th anniversary after the first group of Japanese immigrants left for Brazil in search of a better life.
Brazil is now home to more than 1.2 million people of Japanese descent, or “Nikkeis”, the world’s largest population of ethnic Japanese outside of Japan itself.
Brazilians protest in Tokyo over lack of job security
Brazilian residents from the Kanto area, Aichi and other prefectures held a demonstration in Tokyo on Sunday, campaigning for greater job security for foreign workers.
Around 350 people [including Nambu FWC members following out Winter Meeting], waving Brazilian flags and carrying banners reading “A chance for employment and education,” walked the 2.5 kilometers from Shimbashi to Ginza.
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20090119p2a00m0na002000c.html
Foreign worker tally tops 486,000
The number of foreign workers employed in Japan stood at 486,398 at the end of October, including 118,488 in Tokyo, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry said Friday.
The total is more than double a previous estimate of 223,000 based on voluntary reports by employers in June 2006, before the revised employment promotion law took effect in October 2007, obliging employers to file reports on foreign employees.
By prefecture, Tokyo had the largest number of foreign workers, followed by Aichi with 60,326, Shizuoka with 31,453 and Kanagawa with 27,473.
Temporary and contract workers accounted for 33.6 percent of total foreign employees, suggesting many of them, primarily in manufacturing, have lost their jobs amid the recession.
Official withdraws jobless remark
Tetsushi Sakamoto, parliamentary secretary for internal affairs and communications, on Tuesday apologized for and retracted a remark he made the previous day in which he cast doubt on whether unemployed people at a temporary tent village in Tokyo’s Hibiya Park had the desire to work hard.
“The idea that crossed my mind was that even though the employment situation may be seriously bad, some of them [who had come to the tent village] might not have a serious desire to work. I made the remark without fully grasping the situation,” said Sakamoto, a Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker in his second term in the House of Representatives. “I disturbed and upset many people. I’d like to retract the remark and deeply apologize to those concerned.”
But he ruled out the possibility of resigning as parliamentary secretary, as had been demanded by the opposition parties.
LDP figure hits Hibiya jobless as slackers, retracts gaffe
Referring to the hundreds of laid-off temp workers and others who sought shelter over the weekend at a tent village in Tokyo, the Liberal Democratic Party member said at a New Year’s address Monday, “I wonder if people who are really serious about working gathered there.”
After opposition lawmakers and others objected to his remarks, Sakamoto apologized at a news conference.
“I have caused trouble to concerned parties,” he said.
Japan makes progress in 2009
As we start 2009, let’s recharge the batteries by reviewing last year’s good news. Here is [an abbreviated version of Arudou Debito‘s] list of top human rights advancements for Japan in 2009, in ascending order:
5. Strawberry fields forever
(Feb. 11): Fifteen Chinese trainees sued strawberry farms in Tochigi Prefecture for unpaid wages, unfair dismissal and an attempted repatriation by force. Thanks to [Tokyo Nambu and the Nambu Foreign Workers Caucus allies] Zentoitsu Workers Union, they were awarded ¥2 million each in back pay and overtime, a formal apology, and reinstatement in their jobs.Why this matters: This is another good precedent, treating non-Japanese (NJ) laborers (who as trainees aren’t covered by labor laws) the same as Japanese workers. It is also the subject of the German documentary “Sour Strawberries“, which premieres in Japan in March.
3. Non-Japanese get ¥12,000
(Dec. 20): The “teigaku kyufukin” first started out as a clear bribe to voters to “yoroshiku” the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Then complaints were raised about the other taxpayers who aren’t citizens, so permanent residents and NJ married to Japanese became eligible. Finally, just before Christmas, all registered NJ were included.Why this matters: Even if this “stimulus” is ineffective, it’s a wall-smasher: Japan’s public policy is usually worded as applying to “kokumin,” or citizens only. It’s the first time a government cash-back program (a 1999 coupon scheme only included permanent residents) has included all noncitizen taxpayers, and recognized their importance to the Japanese economy.
LDP lawmaker apologizes for hinting ‘tent village’ residents don’t want to work
Parliamentary Secretary for Internal Affairs and Communications Tetsushi Sakamoto on Tuesday retracted his controversial comments questioning whether unemployed people who took shelter in Tokyo’s Hibiya Park over the New Year period seriously possess the will to work.
“I have caused trouble to many people,” Sakamoto, a Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker from the Kumamoto third district, said as he apologized at a press conference on Tuesday morning.
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20090106p2a00m0na008000c.html
Nambu New Year Flag Raising Party
Tokyo Nambu’s New Year Flag Raising Party will be held on Wednesday, January 14 at 7:00pm in Kyurian, across the street from Oimachi Station (JR Keihin Tohoku Line/ Tokyu Toyoko Line). 3,000 yen charge gets you plenty of food, drink and inspiring speeches.
All members and supporters are welcome.
Kyurian
Oimachi 5-18-1, Shinagawa-ku
Google Maps link
Park homeless promised shelter
The organizing group for a tent village in Hibiya Park in Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo, said Sunday the welfare ministry has promised to prepare new shelters for the 500 people there.
The homeless people, many of them believed to be temporary workers recently thrown out of their jobs, have been staying in the park and a nearby welfare ministry hall.
“This situation is a man-made disaster caused by a wrongheaded (government) policy that allows employers to use workers as a disposable resource. We’d like the government to fulfill its responsibility” to protect workers, said [the Secretary General of a union for temporary workers].
The organizing group has called on the ministry to provide housing, food and clothes for the people in the park and hall.
Jobless flood ‘tent village’
A New Year shelter for Japan’s growing number of jobless had to move from a park into a government building yesterday, after more people than expected flocked to the makeshift ‘tent village’.
The shelter – which was made up of 50 tents – was set up by volunteers and labour unions on New Year’s Eve to offer free food and shelter for homeless people, including laid-off temporary workers who were forced to leave lodging provided by their employers.
The ‘village’ was located at Tokyo’s Hibiya Park, which is in front of the Imperial Hotel, one of Japan’s most luxurious hotels.
But the organisers had to seek the government’s help after more than 300 people flocked to the shelter which could accommodate at most 250 people, said Japanese media.
The government late on Friday decided to allow the homeless to move to a ministry hall where they could stay until tomorrow. Job counselling and other efforts are also under way to place the homeless in other locations.
The tent village highlights the serious social costs of the global recession for the world’s second largest economy.
The government estimates that 85,000 part-time workers have lost or will lose their jobs between now and March. Another 3,300 permanent employees are expected to become jobless over the same period.
Temporary workers have been the first to be fired in the latest wave of cutbacks as Japan’s exports and company investments crashed amid the global financial crisis.
Temporary jobs at manufacturing were illegal before 2004, but today, top companies, including Toyota Motor and Canon, routinely rely on temporary staffing to adjust production to gyrating overseas demand.
Japanese Communist Party leader Kazuo Shii, who visited the village, said the government needs to do more to help the unemployed.
‘It is unforgivable that Japan’s major companies have thrown so many workers out on the streets at the end of the year,’ he said.
For decades, Japan promised lifetime employment at major companies, and government welfare programmes for the jobless are still limited.
The tent village has also drawn some who have been needy for years.
Mr Shigeru Kobayashi, 65, who has been unemployed for four years, lives in the park.
‘People talked about a recovery, but it never got good anyway,’ he said with a grin. ‘I’m unemployed. All I have is a heart.’
Mr Tamotsu Chiba, 55, a theatre producer and volunteer at the tent village, said he found the energy of the volunteers encouraging.
‘There are so many different kinds of people here. This has given me a feeling of hope about Japan,’ he said.
http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Asia/Story/STIStory_321783.html