Unbearable hours, threats of being fired: The abuse of migrant interns in Japan

https://observers.france24.com/en/asia-pacific/20220419-unbearable-hours-threats-of-being-fired-the-abuse-of-migrant-interns-in-japan

by tropicalfruit • 2 years ago

83 60 2 years ago

observers.france24.com

hollywood_court7• 2 years ago

I saw this kind of behavior when I worked for a Korean company here in the US.

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.

StefanBatory• 2 years ago

Whenever Korean factories opened in Poland, that was the same conclusion. Workers were treated like shit.

hollywood_court7• 2 years ago

These types of companies are fleeing to the Southern US because the conservative governments here offer no protections for the employees.

alephnerd14• 2 years ago

Sadly, it's a common issue with recently developed country work culture.

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.

[0] https://www.eetimes.com/tsmcs-arizona-culture-clash/

silverquiet6• 2 years ago

What specifically did they do? I can say that I've been treated very badly by Private Equity and other employers myself, but it's easy to lack perspective and I don't really feel like trying to enter a victim contest. Hopefully I've learned enough to avoid that kind of employment in future.

alephnerd14• 2 years ago

In IB/PE we have exit opps like VC or PM, and there is a reckoning in IB/PE leadership that the old school 60-100 hour analyst work culture is toxic.

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.

hollywood_court7• 2 years ago

For us regular US employees it was 6 days a week 12 hours per day. If you were more than 90 seconds late clocking in you were written up. 3 write ups and you're gone. 30 minute unpaid lunch break, but you weren't allowed to leave the site. To be honest, the strict stuff like that wasn't applicable to me because I was the only one there who could run the 5 axis CNC machines and edit the code. Everyone else was disposable.

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.

chaostheory• 2 years ago

One of my good friends is South Korean. When he worked for Samsung in Seoul as an engineer over a decade ago, he was forced to live in Samsung dormitories which were overseen by their managers. Apparently, it was a shock even for him to realize that he had to ask his manager just to go out on a date. If I remember correctly, he even had to give details of his female date to his manager. (It may or may not be official policy, but what are you going to do when they ask and you need permission to leave?)

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.

alephnerd14• 2 years ago

Lots of Koreans move to Vietnam and Thailand for that reason. The pay is low in SK and the work culture horrid, so if your choice is earning $30-50k in Seoul or $20-40k in BKK or Saigon, plenty of people choose the latter.

orwin• 2 years ago

And tbh, Korean work culture seems to be horrible for overall productivity. Disclaimer: my only second hand knowledge are a Norwegian oil rig engineer and a French sailor (working on oil rigs. Weird, I know, one is extended family, second is happenstance).

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.

i5heu2• 2 years ago

Not so funny for Japan considering that immigration is the only way they can handle their rapidly aging population.

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.

sanitycheck• 2 years ago

One thing they can do is incentivise women to rejoin the workforce after having kids, another is raise the retirement age to 70+. I think we'll see both in the next 5-10 years. Maybe they can kill two birds with one stone and have OAPs work as childcare providers.

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.

alephnerd14• 2 years ago

is incentivise women to rejoin the workforce after having kids

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.

Workaccount23• 2 years ago

I honestly think one of Americas greatest strengths is the ability to move here from where ever and be able to join society with relatively low friction.

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".

alephnerd14• 2 years ago

I literally got into an argument with a couple Germans on HN about this earlier today.

giraffe_lady• 2 years ago

I don't think that's cause to dismiss the very real experiences of racism that people do have in the US. Racism kills people here too.

silverquiet6• 2 years ago

When my dad was a kid, black Americans couldn't use the same water fountain as whites; it's not exactly ancient history. My grandparents wouldn't share rooms with black people at their nursing homes, and I'm talking about a couple years ago. It didn't all end because LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act. At some point I think it might have been better when it was all out in the open, so at least you knew what was going on.

walthamstow3• 2 years ago

Racism in the US is less to do with the people who moved there and more to do with the people who were taken there.

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.

throwaway7432• 2 years ago

I honestly think one of Americas greatest strengths is the ability to move here from where ever and be able to join society with relatively low friction.

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.

kstenerud• 2 years ago

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.

Aaaaaaand cue Roujin Z

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEKTFwkuDps

maxglute2• 2 years ago

only way they can handle their rapidly aging population

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.

alephnerd14• 2 years ago

which is to not handle geriatric care well at all

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.

[0] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-at2w5ORFfE

downrightmike• 2 years ago

Dead body cleanup is going to be a booming career

savolai• 2 years ago

On the general theme, I loved the book

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_and_Trembling_(film)?wpro...

alephnerd14• 2 years ago

An indie Japanese-Vietnamese movie recently came out called "Along the Sea" giving a slice of life view of this [0]

I recommend watching it sometime.

[0] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qU2xaRBeFiU&embeds_referring_e...

Unbearable hours, threats of being fired: The abuse of migrant interns in Japan

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