Eight years ain’t temporary … it’s permanent.
Posted by Matt Dioguardi on October 3rd, 2007
The Japan Business Federation is looking for ways to extend the foreign trainee programs to the extent that a foreigner could stay in Japan a total of eight years so long as they were taking part in a training program. (link). Once this time period is up, then presumably they would have to return to their home countries.
Of course, as we know that this is only a response to Japan’s impending labor shortage, we also know that this is not an attempt to train people, but to alleviate the future labor shortage by allowing so called “temporary” workers. The idea being that “temporary” workers will alleviate the labor shortage, but not do damage to Japan’s cultural institutions.
Let’s ask a few questions.
Is the Japanese constitution based on the idea of universal human rights? Like the American constitution, is the force driving the constitution the notion that people have inalienable rights?
Is citizenship or nationalization (the process of becoming a national) something that is based on universal human rights? Or instead is it based on showing commitment to your new home? Or instead is it based on being something (like Japanese or American) in an essentialist sense?
For example, even if a foreigner hates Japan, from the perspective of universal human rights, would this foreigner accrue the right to be in Japan after having been in Japan a certain number of years?
In short, what I am saying is this: eight years is a heck of a long time to allow someone to stay in Japan and live, only to say at the end of that period, “all right, times up, head home.”
October 3rd, 2007 at 1:53 pm
It is hard to say that “citizenship” is one of the traditional human right:You have right to speech based on the fact that you are human being, but you have no right to Japanese citizenship just because you are human being.
As for the trainee, I think they should be regarded as workers, and as such they should be granted the same right as Japanese temporary workers.
October 3rd, 2007 at 11:07 pm
One would assume that after eight years of on-the-job training, this worker would be attractive enough to Japanese employers that s/he would have no trouble finding a visa-sponsoring position that extended the stay indefinitely.
I’ve been in Japan for more than 20 years, but I’m still on a work visa now, and as such have no *right* to stay here forever. If I take citizenship or get permanent residency the game changes, of course. I don’t see how “accruing the right to stay in Japan” could automatically enter the picture for a non-citizen (excluding special cases like the zainichi Koreans and so forth). It’s certainly not the way it happens in any other country I can think of.
October 4th, 2007 at 12:07 am
Regarless of the inalienability or otherwise of citizenship rights, the very fact that the Japanese government is encouraging a two-tier system of employment - one for foreigners, one for Japanese - is a disturbing trend.
It seems Japan is trying to reap one the benefits of globalization–cheap labor for low-skilled jobs–with none of the social turmoil that comes with companies offshoring or outsourcing to China.
Do you really think people need to be trained in manual labor work for eight years? Or does the trainee classification allow the employer to get away with China-like employment conditions (or at least, substandard in comparison to Japanese employees’ conditions) without the bother of actually going to China?
Will such trainees be offered jobs once their eight years are up as Durf suggests? Possibly–but I’d bet any such offers would be for doing exactly the same thing they’ve been doing for the past eight years. Managerial training, design or planning work (the real value adds) are not on the menu.
And that doesn’t even touch on the obvious social dangers inherent in creating a racially distinct underclass with no hope of bettering itself, and no motivation to assimilate.