Gender and Exploitative Migration: Refugees and Trainees inJapan
Discrimination and Human Rights
Violations against Foreign Female
Trainees
Naomi Hayasaki
More than half of the foreign trainees and technical interns are women.
considered a “convenient labor force”?
I met Ms. Lee (assumed name) and
her two co-workers, Chinese female trainees
and technical interns at a Japanese sock
manufacturer, in March of 2007. After
appealing to their company’
s president to no
avail, they decided to approach me for advice
to help improve their working conditions.
From their faces, I could tell they had thought
things through and decided it was time to take
action. However, I was nervous I would not
meet their expectations.
In July 2004, three female Chinese
trainees from Zhejiang Province (including
Lee) came to a city in the Kansai area as the
trainees of a sock factory. The cooperative,
their primary accepting organization, is old,
large, well known in the town, and has led
cooperative movements such as a groupbuying movement. However, immediately
after their foreign registration, the cooperative
took their passports to limit their mobility.
The cooperative’
s off-the-job training lasted
only four days, and the trainees were forced to
work in the sock factory before as well as after
their training.
Although their training allowance
was sixty-thousand yen, fifty-thousand was
automatically deposited into their savings
account, and their bankbooks and seals were
kept by the company, effectively eliminating
WOMEN’S ASIA 21
Why are they
their access to the money. Also, the company
forced them to save at least three-hundred
thousand yen in their bank account.
The actual cash provided by the
company was only ten-thousand yen plus a
salary from a “side job.” This “side job” was
in fact additional, standard work at the sock
factory. When asked, the company told the
trainees, “The training allowance being very
little, we provided more jobs for you because
of our warm sympathy. However, holding a
side job is prohibited by law so you are not
allowed to talk about the job.”To conceal the
trainees’ employment, each trainee was
assigned a fake Japanese name for their
payment slips.
Ironically, the “side job” was
actually the same job in the same place as
their main job. While trainees were supposed
to be paid for overtime, they only received
five-hundred yen an hour for hours worked
between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. on weekdays, even
after becoming technical interns. Additionally,
trainees were forced to work until 10 p.m.
every day, including weekends. According to
Lee’
s account, the actual work conditions of
trainees and interns were almost identical, and
the “side job”sometimes exceeded 200 hours
a month. Trainees had only 20 to 30 holidays
a year, and payment was made only for
piecework; that is to say, working hours were
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No. 20 Winter 2008
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Gender and Exploitative Migration: Refugees and Trainees inJapan
not considered, only the produced goods.
Therefore, the effective compensation for the
“side job” was only 100-yen per hour. The
Japanese company was using the trainees as
cheap labor, taking advantage of their naivety.
Exploitation
aside,
working
conditions for the trainees were also subpar.
On weekends, when Japanese employees do
not come to work, it was prohibited for the
trainees to use an air conditioner. Even
without an air conditioner, the trainees were
not permitted to open the windows because
of “security issues.” Imagine working in the
hot and humid summer in a room where all
doors and windows are closed and there is
only one electric fan. One day, the trainees
couldn’
t handle the heat and humidity and
opened the entrance door without permission.
When their boss found out, they were harshly
scolded. The policy violation was minor but
the company was worried somebody might
find out the trainees were forced to work on
weekends. Due to this terrible working
environment, some trainees passed out during
working hours.
To further redu ce costs, the
company imposed a variety of fines on
trainees. When inferior goods were produced,
trainees were forced to pay fines that Japanese
employees did not have to pay. There were
also fines for mistakes in daily reports as well
as fines (three-thousand yen!) for visiting the
dormitory of other enterprises without
permission.
Finally, some trainees were forced
to weed the garden or clean the windows at
the president’
s house on New Year’
s Day,
holidays in May or bon festival seasons.
At work, many superiors abused
their power. Lee reports she was often yelled
at, called “stupid,”threatened by her superior
who would hit the floor with an iron stick.
She also had thrown things at her and
endured other abuses. The experience induced
great pressure and mental damage.
A little before I was consulted, Lee,
a second-year intern, and her nine co-workers
went to the company requesting they be able
to quit the side job. They requested that the
company “consider the side work as
overtime,”and not to raise the overtime wage.
The company would not heed the trainees’
request and threatened to cancel their contract
and deport them to China. Concurrently, the
Chinese sending organization pressured them
to drop their demands and apologize to the
company. Under pressure, the trainees
inevitably submitted essays of repentance,
Trainees working in a sewing factory（Photo provided by Zentoitsu Workers Union）
18
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No. 20 Winter 2008
Gender and Exploitative Migration: Refugees and Trainees inJapan
apologizing to the president and deciding to
continue the side job; however, they were
forced to agree that their overtime working
hours would all be considered a side job,
without the additional payment of
five-hundred yen per hour from 5 p.m. to 6
p.m. on weekdays.
To come to Japan, the trainees paid
the sending organization thirty-thousand yuan
(four-thousand dollars). As a result, most
trainees owed money to relatives or friends
and would return home to a major debt if
they stopped working. Three of the nine who
approached me were first-year trainees, for
whom striking was an exceptionally larger risk.
Nonetheless, Lee felt that it was unjust to
continue being silent and finally decided to
meet me.
The aforementioned treatment is
typical for trainees accepted to work in sewing
factories. Lee worked in Singapore for several
years before she came to Japan. She said, “In
Singapore,
foreign
workers’ working
conditions were strictly protected and
managed by the government. Why did
trainees and interns in Japan have to face
illegal working conditions as the norm.” I
couldn’
t find any words to say to her.
In early May, I requested the
cooperation of a local foreigner-support
group. The group accepted the request and
promised to protect Lee and her co-workers
while seeking legal avenues to secure overtime
work payment. In negotiations with the
company, Lee demanded they address the
company’
s abuse of power. As a result of the
negotiations, almost all of the requested
unpaid amounts were paid, and three interns
(including Lee) were able to return home
safely. However, we have no way to make
sure that the company has made the necessary
modifications in the trainees’ working
environment.
Most foreign trainees and technical
interns in Japan are women. This may be
because traditionally, female trainees have
worked in labor-intensive industries such as
WOMEN’S ASIA 21
sewing. However, there are hidden reasons for
these industries accepting female trainees and
interns. As shown in this latest case, the
enterprise has acknowledged the fact that
their treatment toward trainees and interns is
illegal. In order to maintain their oppression,
such companies try to manage trainees and
interns’everyday life and pressure them by
threat of deportation. It is unfortunate that
some enterprises consider women easier to
manage. During our consultations, many
female trainees were forced to transport very
heavy baggage, the type of work in which
women do not usually participate.
Additionally, in the general climate
of discrimination, enterprises can set lower
wages for females. According to Japan
International
Training
Cooperation
Organi-zation (JITCO) statistics, men earn
forty-thousand yen more than women on
average.
Finally, as a result of the privilege
and authority that sending organizations and
receiving companies have over the trainees,
many sexual harassment cases have occurred.
The system of employment and management
makes things even worse. Some male
presidents choose female trainees by
appearance and not ability. Is that an
international contribution??
When we hold consultations with
trainees and interns to problem solve, we
usually file the incidents with the Labor
Standards Bureau as labor problems, then ask
cooperation from labor unions. The problem
of unpaid wages or unfair dismissal could be
resolved by unions, but I discovered that
prejudice
and
discrimination
against
foreigners was also prevalent in organizations
that should be the allies of the trainees.
Lee and her co-workers suffered
labor abuse and serious human rights
violations. How we react to these events as
individuals will determine whether this kind
of abuse can be stopped.
Naomi Hayasaki, Rights of Immigrants Network
Kansai (RINK)
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No. 20 Winter 2008
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