Foreign trainees or slaves?
Posted by Matt Dioguardi on January 27th, 2007
Article:
Foreign trainees or slaves? (Nov 13, 2006)
Source:
Japan Today
Author:
Terrie Lloyd
Notes from article:
1. A Yomiuri article noted in November that a company in Akitakata was padding its employee numbers so that they could hire more foreign trainees. The foreign trainees were 50% cheaper than regular employees.
2. Lloyd argues this is the tip of the ice berg and that using the system for unskilled labor is now common place.
3. “The trainees work/train under near-slavery conditions and the fall-out from this seems to be increasing. Last year alone, 1,888 of them ran away from their postings, many going on to become illegal workers elsewhere in the country. Broken down by nationality, they numbered 3,516 Chinese, 2,629 Vietnamese, and 1,498 Indonesians — pretty much the same ratios as the nationalities being brought in under the program.”
Comment: I don’t understand the relationship between the 1,888 number and the numbers that follow.
4. There are 83,000 trainees who come to Japan each year. Seventy percent are from China. They work in 62 different types of industries.
Comment: There was a new trainee program from 1993, do these numbers include the new program. The new program has much less members, but under the 1993 program participants can work after their training period.
5. The number of trainees in agriculture are about 9000 compared with 2,200 Japanese high school graduates.
Comment: Well there is a 1 trainee per 20 worker rule, so I’m not sure if I understand these numbers.
6. “The trainee system has been turned into a form of legalized “slavery.” Most trainees for the duration of their three years have virtually no employment rights (they are, after all supposed to be trainees not employees) and are paid unbelievably low compensation — just 66,000 yen (average) a month plus accomodation in the first year, and a more luxurious 118,000 yen (average) or so for the following two years. Could you survive on this?”
Comment: This is unclear. The trainee system is not for three years, unless this is in reference to the Practical Trainee program created in 1993. However, under the practical trainee program workers *have* rights. Whether they can actually exercise them is another matter. But once they become workers, they are covered under labor law. Moreover, *most* trainees don’t stay three years, because under the pre-1993 program it’s not allowed.
7. Lloyd sites some sites three examples of flagrant abuse of the program.
8. “According to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, companies accepting foreign trainees and workers are mostly small-scale businesses with less than 19 employees. There were more than 180 documented cases of fraud or mistreatment last year and it is suspected that a lot more cases go unreported. In fact a Ministry of Health survey found that of 731 reviewed companies, a full 80% of them were violating the minimum wage law and labor standards law for their 2nd- and 3rd-year trainees.”
Comment: The violations of minimum wage are serious, but this would apply to participants of the 1993 program, whose numbers are significantly less than the pre-1993 program.
9. “Obviously the problem is severe enough that the ministry is allocating 400 million yen to its quango looking after the placement of trainees, JITCO, for the purpose of monitoring participating companies to make sure that they stay compliant with the trainee program rules.”
10. Lloyd expresses the opinion that a better system would be one that really trains for one year, and then allows workers to stay on indefinitely. I agree.
Final comment: This is an interesting article, but the statistics given, while important, aren’t given in a clear manner, and specific sources are not given.
More notes:
Terrie Lloyd the author of the article also has a two part series dealing with this issue on at www.daijob.com.
Notes for part one:
1. Mostly similar to editorial.
Notes for part two:
1. Gives the story of a Chinese trainee on a pig farm who after complaining of harsh work conditions was told he’d be deported. He attacked his “trainers” with a knife. This attracted attention to the issue.
2. “According to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, companies accepting foreign trainees and workers are mostly small-scale businesses with less than 19 employees. There were more than 180 documented cases of fraud or mistreatment last year (2005) and it is suspected that a lot more cases go unreported. In fact a Ministry of Health survey found that of 731 reviewed companies, a full 80% of them were violating the minimum wage law and labor standards law for their 2nd-and 3rd-year trainees. Obviously the problem is severe enough that the Ministry is allocating JPY400m (US$3.38m) to the organization tasked with looking after the placement of trainees, JITCO. The money is for increased monitoring of participating companies to make sure that they stay compliant with the trainee program rules.”
3. Article notes that JITCO is making money off the program.