'They refused to let me go': Japanese turn to resignation agencies to quit jobs
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
All it takes is one news org doing a small story a month ago and now we get hundreds of stories from news orgs around the world with all kinds of opinions and mutations to the original story. Its like watching bacteria reproduce. Soon we will see antibiotic resistance.
It is clear that people love reading/writing articles about it though.
(see, now the ftc subscription story is breeding with the resignation story)
More than a decade ago I saw a story about what happened to a "Swiss National" who was jailed in the UAE for three poppy seeds on their shirt. It was quite a disturbing story and was reported around the time some more high profile cases of people being arrested in UAE for what would be normal things in western countries. I saw the same story with the same language appear in dozens of news sites I read and then got suspicious that the wording was near identical and the individual never named.
search for "swiss national jailed UAE poppy seeds" and you can still see some of the articles
Anyway, I contacted the NGO (who it seems does good work, btw!) and asked who this person was and what happened to them. I got a response that during an interview about a more prominent case they told one journalist that it was just a rumour they heard and the story snowballed from there. Nobody contacted them to get more details.
The point I took is not that anyone is malicious or has some sinister agenda but that budgets in newsrooms had been so cut to the bone and "content" needed to be produced as fast as possible to get the clicks, to churn out those stores, and get that ad revenue that nobody had time to do basic fact checking. They were incentivised by the system not to.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mark-twain-read-newspaper-...
Holy moly. Me dumb would think if there is labor shortage then employers would compete to offer the best wage, work ethics, working conditions, and so on.
That's basically the 'hand of the free market', people will go where they have better condition. Those who retain staff through fear are in for a rough ride, you can't go against human nature even in society like Japan that emphasize abnegation so much.
In other countries what they would do is push for more immigration so that they can remain in dominant position, but thankfully for the Japanese they don't have that issue.
I bet that Japanese labors condition will drastically increase in the coming 10 years.
Why do they have conscription? Because the alternative service is to work as an unpaid laborer in things like nursing and so on...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zivildienst_in_Austria
Also, referendum in 2013...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Austrian_conscription_ref...
https://www.dw.com/en/austria-bucks-trend-with-conscription-...
"Many voters were apparently swayed by warnings from health organizations and charities, which had said they would not be able to cope without the 14,000 young men who opt to carry out community service each year.One of them was Alfred Körbel, a 74-year-old from Vienna.
"Civilian service is very important for our society," he told DW. "Organizations like the Red Cross and other health care providers would not be able to keep going without such support."
There was a big generational gap in voting trends, with older people more likely to support conscription. Heidenkamp explains that there was "a blend of different motives" that led to the outcome in favor of conscription."
In short, "we need to keep it as otherwise who would do that" instead of paying more :<
That sounds too optimistic to me. The same problem (shrinking young workforce and hellish working conditions) has been going on for a couple decades now with no end in sight. Reform seems impossible; improvement will only come when the big companies collapse and are replaced by companies run by the younger generation who don't see indentured servitude as a virtue. Because no way is anyone in the older generation going to willingly give up their feudalistic power over their employees, they'd rather see their company go bankrupt.
When they underpaid the nurses And I was not a nurse I looked away
When they devalued the caregivers And I was not a caregiver I remained silent
Then when my own profession faced cuts There was no one left To stand with me
Are these nazis in the room with us?
Then when my children needed a teacher, and I became sick, or old, there was no one left to support me.
Or in other words, companies absolutely can bump pays, even with something not huge like 5-10% and they would still be fine, probably better even. But we can't have that when the CEO needs another yacht, or whatever it is that those empty people always chase. And it's somehow never enough.
The US economy has boomed, largely in part due to the rise of software and technology, and most of the big firms in that space were started by young people and immigrants, things Japan is choosing to have less and less of.
immigration didn't save UK and Germany, and it will not save Japan either. no one in their sane mind will look at Western Europe and say 'yep, we want the same thing here. we want to be minorities in our own cities, because That's A Good Thing'.
where in Western Europe is this currently happening? Which cities?
and when all the other cities in UK, France, Germany, Sweden and other "wir schaffen das" countries change as dramatically, the people who are currently saying "it isn't happening" will change their tune to "it's actually a good thing"
Immigration does fix two particular problems though, especially targeted immigration of skilled workers rather than refugees:
1) It balances an aging, shrinking population which usually stifles innovation and depresses wages (both of which are happening in Japan right now).
2. It increases the talent density of industries. Talented people exist in every country and culture in the world. Attracting them to your country with a wage higher than their home wage is a good way to snowball a competitive industry (because these talented people make things successful leading to more opportunities for more talented people).
America's headed down the exact same path. The only difference is that we have immigration illegal or otherwise to blunt the demographic impact.
Like - If you hand in a resignation, they tear it up, and then you just no-show… what happens?
Likely they just find a way to make the certified mail not work when it is in your favor, while of course it works perfectly when you get delivered some notice of trouble for not showing up at work.
An existing employer can weaponize this and simply not issue this letter.
This does not happen in India but I am not sure if this the case in Japan though.
Greed is universal. Slavery is one of the outcomes.
The world has always been divide on: Owners and workers. This transcends communism and capitalism. Owners always wants more work out of workers. Owners unknowingly or knowingly behave as if they own the people. This was literally true when slavery was widespread.
Even in western countries we find the unwritten understanding between Steve Jobs and Eric Schmidt not to poach each other's engineers [1]. Where is a the "free hand of markets" here? Does it not limit the career opportunities for employees?
Activision Blizzard, one of the top AAA game developer had huge culture problems. There is a lawsuit as well [2]
How is it in the land of free and ideals of Martin Luther King and Abraham Lincoln get to a point where humans are treated like corporate property?
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2012/1/27/2753701/no-poach-scandal-...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Department_of_Fair_...
Also, labor protection for white-caller workers is non-existent in India. Basic expectations like fixed working hours, 5-day weeks, paid overtime etc are luxuries only attributable to the absolute top cream of employers (which mostly tend to be non-Indian MNCs). Other basic things like 2-week notices, flexible retirement and paternal leaves are just straight-up absent, even in top employers.
1. Services
2. Products
The product companies's culture and environment are on-par with silicon valley and this includes a good pay as well.
Services is another matter. The fundamental issue is the business model. These companies earn revenue per person and hence the incentive is to over-staff or over-sell the people needed. There is no incentive to solve or be pro-active about customer's problems.
Hence the "leaving certificate" serves multiple purpose:
1. Person is not working elsewhere
2. Person has gracefully exited the employement and there not pending dues or conflicts.
They mentally can’t.
But one trait of abusive relationships is, that the abuser destroys the self esteem of the victim, making them believe, they cannot stand on their own and that they need the abuser. And that they should rather be thankful ..
Which is why safe houses were founded. To provide such a temporary alternative.
Oh man.... wait until the youth hear about the US custom of Job Hopping every year to get better pay. The labor markets everywhere are shrinking as people like me are yeeted, or age out of the supply.
No wonder the Japanese model is to have a job for life... you're a serf in that model.
I suppose slacking off isn't an option?
You'd think that in a market economy a labor shortage would result in rises in wages and improvements in working conditions because labors hold more leverage in negotiations. And yet.
Back at a previous job in a Japanese Traditional Company over a decade ago, a guy had been trying to quit for months.
‘Tradition’ has it that before you quit, you have to schedule a chat with your team lead, who will then direct your request to the department head for approval. (Yes, you need _permission_ to quit. Fuck the law)
This person was a fairly senior engineer and thus quite essential to the company so they kept giving him the run around, rescheduling his chats and not giving him a direct answer.
One day, a letter addressed to the dept head came, looking all important and official, like it came from a client. The dept head opened the letter and after taking a quick glance immediately tossed it. Our senpai engineer then jumped up and shouted across the entire office, you have seen my notice now, you cannot deny my resignation! I quit! And he stormed off like a boss.
Basically the gist of the story is that they cannot deny your resignation if requested but as long as they don’t acknowledge it they can pretend you never requested it. That’s the origin story of these companies.
Things have gotten better in the past 2 decades. 退職届 — Notice of Resignation is more common nowadays.
Even in the late 2010s, I was still hearing people saying shit like not having more than 5 entries on their employment history.
Is this in Japan? What happens if you simply stop showing up?
Socially speaking, you’re never working in the industry again, possibly never be in full employment ever again.
Things are better now but shit like this was rampant even back in the late 2000s early 2010s.
I mean, I'm sure you're right. I just want to highlight that it's actually oppressive bullshit perpetrated by the rich, not "a funny quirk of a foreign culture". Of course when you try to avoid the notice, it won't work.
Of course we both agree that company straight up refusing to let you go is oppressive and scummy.
This is fine. What's not fine is not being able to determine when that notice period starts, or if it's allowed to start at all. This is the context of this thread.
Having a legal avenue for an employer to never allow an employee to quit is incredibly dystopian. Some might say analogous to slavery.
It's not as if there aren't other ways to convince workers to stay on the job. It's kind of telling that they resort to threats and harassment before they try better wages/benefits or more flexible hours.
When employees feel like they can't leave an abusive job you're just a tiny step from slavery. Japanese workers clearly need to assert themselves. If for some of them this is the only way they feel comfortable doing it, at least it's something. Nobody should feel powerless to leave a job they hate.
I would hesitate to make such an assertion without deeply understanding Japanese culture. There are always trade-offs. The Japanese people have a very unique culture with a lot of positive attributes; it could be that this phenomena is a side-effect of a greater good. To wit, the notion of "loyalty" in Western firms has all but disappeared, in both directions, along with pensions and the rest. As with an engineering decision, you must consider the trade-offs carefully before making a change, or you risk making things worse.
In any case, whatever the consequences would be to Japanese culture if workers stopped having to pay someone to feel safe leaving their job I feel pretty comfortable saying it would be well worth it.
I'm sure slavery had advantages too, for the owners.