5 ms·

Unbearable hours, threats of being fired: The abuse of migrant interns in Japan

rbanffy 2y ago
[flagged]
- alephnerd 2y ago
  Don't be facetious. It's nowhere near as bad as the Trainee program in Japan. Unpaid wages, sexual harassment, unsafe working conditions, and physical violence are common occurrences in the Japanese (and Korean and Taiwanese) Trainee programs, which is used to operate a Gulf style migrant worker system. And unlike the US, legal support for migrant workers is EXTREMELY hard to to come by, as almost all services are in Japanese and legal frameworks that can protect migrants like the Civil Rights Act don't exist. My SO is Vietnamese and has extended family who have migrated to Japan and SK under the program and it is truly horrific, but it's better than starving in Gia Lai.
  - rbanffy 2y ago
    It's similar, though less severe. > as almost all services are in Japanese You can't expect to move to a country and fend for yourself if you don't know the language. Someone who doesn't understand neither English nor Spanish will have a hard time in the US. > and legal frameworks that can protect migrants like the Civil Rights Act don't exist. That lack of a comprehensive legal framework to protect workers is the core of the issues immigrant labor faces. While I can't say I have seen the most horrifying behaviours described in the article, I've seen more than my fair share of Indian colleagues in the US being overworked/underpaid, suffering borderline racist abuse, and stressed for being kept in fear of losing their jobs and the ability to stay in the country. Again, it's not as serious, but it's disingenuous to ignore it.
hollywood_court 2y ago
I saw this kind of behavior when I worked for a Korean company here in the US. They treated us like animals. I thought I had seen the worst working conditions possible during my time in Haiti. But the two years I spent working for the Koreans showed me that I lacked a great deal of perspective regarding just how poorly employees can be treated. And they treated their visiting interns even worse. Students would fly in from Korea and rotate in/out every six months. Those kids were put through the wringer.
- StefanBatory 2y ago
  Whenever Korean factories opened in Poland, that was the same conclusion. Workers were treated like shit.
  - hollywood_court 2y ago
    These types of companies are fleeing to the Southern US because the conservative governments here offer no protections for the employees.
    - macbook_amateur 2y ago
      I remember a Korean car factory in Alabama got caught using child labor a couple years back: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-immigration-hyundai/ https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-immi...
      - hollywood_court 2y ago
        My line supplied that plant. It's about 45 minutes down the road from where I worked. And the Alabama legislature is now making it easier for companies to hire child laborers. We're going to start seeing a lot more injuries in manufacturing and food processing. We are regressing.
  - alephnerd 2y ago
    Sadly, it's a common issue with recently developed country work culture. For example, TSMC is facing similar hurdles trying to expand semicon manufacturing in the US [0]. Even though SK, JP, TW, and Israel are all developed countries now, the developing country mentality still persists because their transition was relatively recent (a generation or less ago), and a lot of labor management and regulations is stuck in the old school era. At least in the EU, the recently developed (eg. Czechia) and developing countries (eg. Bulgaria) still have some labor frameworks to kinda follow and some kind of recourse - at least for white collar work. [0] - https://www.eetimes.com/tsmcs-arizona-culture-clash/ https://www.eetimes.com/tsmcs-arizona-culture-clash/
i5heu 2y ago
Not so funny for Japan considering that immigration is the only way they can handle their rapidly aging population. I hope they can get their decade old humanoid robot research fast enough to production, otherwise i really don't see how they can provide for their population while having to care for 35% to 40% of the population that is over 64. And since it does not look like it, the realization that migrants are not sub humans and actually quite value will hit hard.
- sanitycheck 2y ago
  One thing they can do is incentivise women to rejoin the workforce after having kids, another is raise the retirement age to 70+. I think we'll see both in the next 5-10 years. Maybe they can kill two birds with one stone and have OAPs work as childcare providers. On the topic of this "intern" scheme, I've seen a couple of NHK documentaries on it in the past year or two so it's definitely in the public consciousness now - although I get the impression the response it's got hasn't matched the outrage I would have hoped for. From what I saw a "technical intern" is another name for a farm/factory labourer, which is almost beyond parody. In February the "technical intern" program was abolished and a new system set up in its place. I'm doubtful it will be much better, but I guess we'll find out eventually.
  - alephnerd 2y ago
    > is incentivise women to rejoin the workforce after having kids They already did that - it was a core plank of Abenomics. > raise the retirement age to 70+ Highly unlikely. It would be politically untenable and the LDP is dependent on a coalition with Komeito, which is heavily in favor of the welfare state. > I'm doubtful it will be much better, but I guess we'll find out eventually It won't get better. Same abuse but with a different name.
- Workaccount2 2y ago
  I honestly think one of Americas greatest strengths is the ability to move here from where ever and be able to join society with relatively low friction. People go on and on about racism in America, but I have generally found that those people have absolutely no fucking idea what racism in a society actually looks like. You wanna see racism? Go be a minority in any country with a 90% majority race/culture. Edit: Invariably people need to confuse "Racism is a bigger issue in other countries than the US" with "Racism never existed in the US".
savolai 2y ago
On the general theme, I loved the book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_and_Trembling_(film)?wprov=sfti1# https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_and_Trembling_(film)?wpro...
alephnerd 2y ago
An indie Japanese-Vietnamese movie recently came out called "Along the Sea" giving a slice of life view of this [0] I recommend watching it sometime. [0] - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qU2xaRBeFiU&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ecrannoir.fr%2F https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qU2xaRBeFiU&embeds_referring_e...

[flagged]

alephnerd 2y ago
Don't be facetious. It's nowhere near as bad as the Trainee program in Japan. Unpaid wages, sexual harassment, unsafe working conditions, and physical violence are common occurrences in the Japanese (and Korean and Taiwanese) Trainee programs, which is used to operate a Gulf style migrant worker system. And unlike the US, legal support for migrant workers is EXTREMELY hard to to come by, as almost all services are in Japanese and legal frameworks that can protect migrants like the Civil Rights Act don't exist. My SO is Vietnamese and has extended family who have migrated to Japan and SK under the program and it is truly horrific, but it's better than starving in Gia Lai.
- rbanffy 2y ago
  It's similar, though less severe. > as almost all services are in Japanese You can't expect to move to a country and fend for yourself if you don't know the language. Someone who doesn't understand neither English nor Spanish will have a hard time in the US. > and legal frameworks that can protect migrants like the Civil Rights Act don't exist. That lack of a comprehensive legal framework to protect workers is the core of the issues immigrant labor faces. While I can't say I have seen the most horrifying behaviours described in the article, I've seen more than my fair share of Indian colleagues in the US being overworked/underpaid, suffering borderline racist abuse, and stressed for being kept in fear of losing their jobs and the ability to stay in the country. Again, it's not as serious, but it's disingenuous to ignore it.

I saw this kind of behavior when I worked for a Korean company here in the US. They treated us like animals. I thought I had seen the worst working conditions possible during my time in Haiti. But the two years I spent working for the Koreans showed me that I lacked a great deal of perspective regarding just how poorly employees can be treated. And they treated their visiting interns even worse. Students would fly in from Korea and rotate in/out every six months. Those kids were put through the wringer.

StefanBatory 2y ago
Whenever Korean factories opened in Poland, that was the same conclusion. Workers were treated like shit.
- hollywood_court 2y ago
  These types of companies are fleeing to the Southern US because the conservative governments here offer no protections for the employees.
  - macbook_amateur 2y ago
    I remember a Korean car factory in Alabama got caught using child labor a couple years back: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-immigration-hyundai/ https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-immi...
    - hollywood_court 2y ago
      My line supplied that plant. It's about 45 minutes down the road from where I worked. And the Alabama legislature is now making it easier for companies to hire child laborers. We're going to start seeing a lot more injuries in manufacturing and food processing. We are regressing.
- alephnerd 2y ago
  Sadly, it's a common issue with recently developed country work culture. For example, TSMC is facing similar hurdles trying to expand semicon manufacturing in the US [0]. Even though SK, JP, TW, and Israel are all developed countries now, the developing country mentality still persists because their transition was relatively recent (a generation or less ago), and a lot of labor management and regulations is stuck in the old school era. At least in the EU, the recently developed (eg. Czechia) and developing countries (eg. Bulgaria) still have some labor frameworks to kinda follow and some kind of recourse - at least for white collar work. [0] - https://www.eetimes.com/tsmcs-arizona-culture-clash/ https://www.eetimes.com/tsmcs-arizona-culture-clash/

i5heu 2y ago

Not so funny for Japan considering that immigration is the only way they can handle their rapidly aging population. I hope they can get their decade old humanoid robot research fast enough to production, otherwise i really don't see how they can provide for their population while having to care for 35% to 40% of the population that is over 64. And since it does not look like it, the realization that migrants are not sub humans and actually quite value will hit hard.

sanitycheck 2y ago
One thing they can do is incentivise women to rejoin the workforce after having kids, another is raise the retirement age to 70+. I think we'll see both in the next 5-10 years. Maybe they can kill two birds with one stone and have OAPs work as childcare providers. On the topic of this "intern" scheme, I've seen a couple of NHK documentaries on it in the past year or two so it's definitely in the public consciousness now - although I get the impression the response it's got hasn't matched the outrage I would have hoped for. From what I saw a "technical intern" is another name for a farm/factory labourer, which is almost beyond parody. In February the "technical intern" program was abolished and a new system set up in its place. I'm doubtful it will be much better, but I guess we'll find out eventually.
- alephnerd 2y ago
  > is incentivise women to rejoin the workforce after having kids They already did that - it was a core plank of Abenomics. > raise the retirement age to 70+ Highly unlikely. It would be politically untenable and the LDP is dependent on a coalition with Komeito, which is heavily in favor of the welfare state. > I'm doubtful it will be much better, but I guess we'll find out eventually It won't get better. Same abuse but with a different name.
Workaccount2 2y ago
I honestly think one of Americas greatest strengths is the ability to move here from where ever and be able to join society with relatively low friction. People go on and on about racism in America, but I have generally found that those people have absolutely no fucking idea what racism in a society actually looks like. You wanna see racism? Go be a minority in any country with a 90% majority race/culture. Edit: Invariably people need to confuse "Racism is a bigger issue in other countries than the US" with "Racism never existed in the US".

savolai 2y ago

On the general theme, I loved the book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_and_Trembling_(film)?wprov=sfti1# https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_and_Trembling_(film)?wpro...

alephnerd 2y ago

An indie Japanese-Vietnamese movie recently came out called "Along the Sea" giving a slice of life view of this [0] I recommend watching it sometime. [0] - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qU2xaRBeFiU&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ecrannoir.fr%2F https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qU2xaRBeFiU&embeds_referring_e...