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labor

Two Sushiro workers form the Conveyor Belt Sushi Union, seeking better wages and more

Among other grievances, workers allege that they are not paid fairly for their preparation time or labor and hours worked are unjustly rounded down. 

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Poll in Japan shows zero percent of students are aiming to work in goods distribution

Researchers link lack of aspirations to lack of exposure and knowledge about the field.

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Working at Osaka shrimp company has only one rule: Don’t do any work that you don’t want to do

Working hours at this shrimp processing and packaging plant are outlined as: “Whenever the heck you feel like it.”

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Tokyo Olympics is looking for volunteers, may have a hard time finding them

You don’t get many chances to be a part of sports history, and judging by the standards for volunteers set by the The Tokyo Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, this isn’t one either.

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Work, welfare or prison? Man orders curry, refuses to pay, then calls the police to take him away

After a man turned himself into police for refusing to pay for his meal, some wondered if he might be mentally ill. On the other hand, some suspect he might be saner than many in Japan.

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Chinese woman, 25, demands workers’ compensation, says “Overtime made me an old lady”

On November 18 a young woman was spotted on the streets of Shenzhen City in Guangdong, China carrying a sign which read: “Overnight and overtime work has made me into an old lady. Both my love and work lives are miserable. I request approval for workers’ compensation.”

It was an unusual yet straightforward demand that triggered debate and reflection on the state of working conditions in the country.

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During an interview at his Kyoto headquarters this week, Nidec Corporation CEO Shigenobu Nagamori was quoted as saying, “Due to Japan’s strict labor laws, we cannot compete with enterprises in Korea and China.” He intends to lobby the government to relax labor regulations to allow for more flexible working conditions.

He additionally said that the government and the Bank of Japan need to weaken and maintain the yen to around a 90-100 yen to the dollar exchange rate in order for Japanese export companies to compete with booming exports from China and Korea. Read More

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With just one week left to vote for the most evil employer of 2012, we’d like to shed some light on an overlooked “black corporation” – city governments.  Sure, government workers often get a bad rap as being slow and overpaid with ridiculous job security.  But in the words of Bob Dylan “the times they are a-changing.”

In Osaka, government workers will be forbidden to have any tattoos and a drinking ban is in talks for all the city workers of Fukuoka.  But to really see the slippery slope that these labor reforms can lead to, we should turn our attention to the People’s Republic of China.

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