Unbearable hours, threats of being fired: The abuse of migrant interns in Japan
observers.france24.com
observers.france24.com
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.
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.
Czech lands were pretty developed (relatively speaking) for many centuries, e. g. T the first German speaking university was established in Prague. Then the communist era spoiled it, World Bank recognized Czechia as "developed" 9nly in 2006.
Czechia didn't catch up to Western Europe HDIs until the mid-2010s, and Median wages were significantly lower than much of Western Europe until recently (eg. The datapoint above), and GDP per Capita is still significantly behind much of Western Europe and the Asian Tigers.
Even South Korea didn't officially become developed until the mid-2010s, and they outpaced Czechia in HDI and GDP per Capita by the early 2000s.
Alternatively, if Czechia was a developed country in the mid-2000s, then Turkey and Hungary are now developed countries in the early 2020s as they have hit similar indicators as Czechia in the 2000s.
> Czech lands were pretty developed
Developed versus developing is a technical-ish term.
Czechia was absolutely a developing country until recently. Just having a medieval university or some industrial capacity in the early 20th isn't saying much, as Korea and Taiwan were in a similar boat as well under the otherwise brutal Japanese colonial rule.
And even today, water treatment in Czechia lags significantly behind much of the Western EU member states.
Saying otherwise is just Eurocentricism.
And it also ignores that fact that for most of it's history, it was CzechoSLOVAKIA and Slovakia is still lagging behind on developmental indicators to this day, despite having a similar linguistic and ethnic proximity to Czechs as Serbs are to Croats.
Quite a lot of industrial capacity since the early 19th. Czech Lands had a lot of black coal and water, so heavy industry started flourishing early, once steam engines were available. The first industrial ironworks in Ostrava started producing steel in 1828; the heavy ingots back then had to be transported by horses, because first railway only reached the region a decade later.
" for most of it's history, it was CzechoSLOVAKIA"
Nope, bad history. Czechoslovakia was a relatively short-lived country, only extant for three generations. The Slovaks spent almost a millennium, from approximately 1000 to 1918, as a Hungarian de-facto colony, Felvidék (the Upper Land); subject of a different kingdom. The Czech crown lands never extended to Slovakia. The only unitary state was the 20th century republic.
In Korean companies, the work culture is still stuck in the 90s era IB mentality, as a lot of management are much older and started their careers when chauvanism, racism, functional alcoholism, power politics, overwork, etc was still the norm.
Tbf, SK was still a developing country until 10-15ish years ago.
> for a company that ended up owned by a firm; that was the terrible experience.
That's a bit different. Depending on the type of PE, it may have been a PE of last resort.
You only sell to Thoma Bravo if your company is an absolute dumpster fire and has no roadmap forward, so it needs drastic restructuring.
Sucks for line level ICs ofc.
For example, VC is a subset of PE.
Apollo, KKR, Guggenheim, and Thoma Bravo are PE funds that have practices dedicated to acquiring non-performing assets (basically companies that are near the verge of collapse)
That said, it's good for us to keep striving to find an ideal balance between work and personal life.
We won’t find better work life balance until workers organize and old folks in charge with old ideas and values die out.
I'd like to have Social Security benefits in 30-40 years tbh, so not a fan of potentially declining birth rates. That said, immigration is absolutely our superpower, and something we need to support.
(I am bootstrapping a non profit to buy unwanted fertility, funded through carbon markets; bias disclosed)
Swedes and Canadians would like to have a word with you.
Despite being the son of those "third world immigrants" I've funded companies and built products that have most likely protected your employer from nation states attacks by "third world" countries like Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, and have absolutely protected NATO+.
Go crawl back into your hole and don't come out.
Could u have started those companies in ur parents origin country?
One of the most memorable examples of not being treated like a human was when a coworker of mine wished to take one hour off in order to see his daughter graduate from high school. He had 4 kids at one time. But he lost one to cancer and two others to gang violence. He put in a time off request more than 5 months in advance so he could see his only remaining child graduate.
They denied his request. On the day of the graduation he clocked out and went to the graduation. He was gone maybe 35 minutes total. He saw his daughter walk across the stage and then he returned to work. They were waiting for him at the time clock and fired him.
When it comes to the interns, I saw a lot of yelling, grabbing by the arms while admonishing, and making them work without meals. All of the full time Korean employees had their lunch catered every day. The interns weren't allowed to eat with the full time employees and they weren't allowed to take any kind of meal breaks at all as for as I know.
I'm sure there was much more that went on behind closed doors, but seeing grown men grab 19 year old girls by their arms and shake them while yelling at them was pretty enlightening.
But it is far better than working in a manufacturing facility or anything else I ever did while working for someone else.
I don't want to be the type of person who says "well, I paid my dues, you should too." I want things to be better for everyone. Now one should have to go through the things I went through as a young man. No one should have to be forced to work 6 days per week 12 hours per day simply to be able to barely make ends meet.
Knowing what life was like here since he went to undergrad here, it was an easy choice for him to come back to the US.
But from what I've heard, they have trouble adapting to new data (they _can_ do it in real emergency, but actively avoid taking initiative), hide issues and overall are very rigid and show almost no improvisation skills, all of which is a problem in high stress, fast-changing environment like oil rigs.
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.
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.
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.
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".
One time, he and my mother (white) were apartment hunting and this one landlord was excited to show them, when speaking over the phone. Once they showed up to check it out, that asshole slammed the door in their faces.
Discrimination persists through all aspects of life, employment, housing, etc. It's pathetic, really.
The USA was an apartheid country in the Jim Crow era. What could be more racist than segregation?
Jim Crow apartheid was so deeply pervasive that WW2 soldiers blood transfusion packets were segregated, so a stricken white soldier wouldn't be tarnished with black blood. That's quite something when you're fighting against the Nazis.
But contemporary examples, especially against immigrants, contrasted against immigrants to mono cultural countries, would be much more relevant to the point I am making.
Your second paragraph was a car crash of racism denial and you should probably take it back, rather than insisting it's everyone else's fault for reading it wrong
> "You wanna see racism? Go [somewhere else]"
The outward shameless and crippling racism of 1940's American south is still in full force in many countries, but they never get attention for it because the minorities there are too minority to even show up on the radar.
Japan is probably going to collapse because giving a foreigner a position of power (commercial or government) is basically unthinkable. Meanwhile America "the most racist country on Earth" just had a black president for 8 years and has a congress composed of 25% minorities.
I mean, not totally unthinkable, thankfully. That's the only reason we have the Carlos Ghosn Hollywood-esque escape story.
I think that in the context of this discourse Workaccount2 has a point in what i believe Workaccount2 has meant, which is that the countries with the lowest amounts of xenophobia and racism will attract the most migrants... because who would like to live in a country in which you are oppressed.
And to come back to Japan: Japan seams to have a horrific problem with xenophobia and racism, at least this is the impression i get when i look at the discourse that happen in Japan from the outside[0] and read through Wikipedia[1]. What, does not mean that the US or EU has no racism, and can stop working, quite the opposite.
[0] This one is especially revealing IMHO https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CraWEwbyapQ
[1] > Japan lacks any law which prohibits racial, ethnic, or religious discrimination. The country also has no national human rights institutions. Non-Japanese individuals in Japan often face human rights violations that Japanese citizens may not. In recent years, non-Japanese media has reported that Japanese firms frequently confiscate the passports of guest workers in Japan, particularly unskilled laborers.
> A significant number of apartments, and some motels, night clubs, brothels, sex parlours and public baths in Japan have put up signs stating that foreigners are not allowed, or that they must be accompanied by a Japanese person to enter.
> "Discrimination toward foreign nationals in their searches for homes continues to be one of the biggest problems", said the head of the Ethnic Media Press Centre.
> "Discrimination toward foreign nationals in their searches for homes continues to be one of the biggest problems", said the head of the Ethnic Media Press Centre.
> Some hospitals have been known to turn patients away if they could not confirm their residence status.
It really depends on where you move to and where youre from.
Also, let's not sweep discrimination under the rug. It's ugly and wrong all around. Some places worse than others, but it's still bullshit and shouldn't be tolerated, especially when it comes to employment.
Aaaaaaand cue Roujin Z
There's always the unspoken option, which is to not handle geriatric care well at all. Old people have been dying neglected and alone in JP for a while. When shit critically hits the fan, geriatric population will be either too senile to vote, or if they can vote, too weak to protest, and thus can be easily ignored as a bloc. Goal of cycling through disposable migrants to do shit jobs locals don't want to do is to keep value positive sectors crunching. IMO different dynamic when it's coming out of pockets of already squeezed tax base to take care of boomers. There'sgoing to be a lot of, you lived a long life, so sad, too bad, because good luck convincing ethnocentric youth to take another L for the team by treating migrants better, the only social prestige pressed these days is knowing outsiders have it worse. Societies have no problem finding a way to be callous to poor, kids, women, minorities etc, they'll find a way to rationalize being incredibly callous to elders.
There is a recent Japanese Sci-Fi movie that came out at Cannes recently called Plan 75 [0] that touches on that option
Ofc, Japan is a democracy and old people vote.
Even if the LDP ruled for much of Japan's democratic history, it's still vulnerable to losing power due to public anger (eg. Kishida's corruption scandal).
Imagine how angrier Japanese voters would be with horrible geriatric care.
>Japan is a democracy and old people vote
I think when non-working gerontocratic voting block interests confronts with interests of tax paying workforce trying to keep head above water, the elderly are going to lose. When under 50 year olds have to decide between their reduction in their QoL / services vs neglecting the old, including their own kin, they're going to eventually chose to throw their kin under the bus. If problem is just structurally not resolvable (which IMO it's not), LDP will claw their way back from whoever the next DPJ upstart is after they fail. Which is to say, I can imagine JP getting some robots going, and some migrant worker for elderly care, but if neither is enough, I think more likely politics will over promise and underdeliver until elderly accept their lot because you can only push the young so much. It's going to take a few political cycles for people to accept the "normal", but if any "democracy" can rig the system to survive that process, it's LDP/Japan.
I recommend watching it sometime.
[0] - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qU2xaRBeFiU&embeds_referring_e...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_and_Trembling_(film)?wpro...