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Power harassment plaguing Japanese workplaces more than ever before
Power harassment, in which someone in a superior position takes advantage of their power to cause distress to others, is now rampant in the workplace in the form of bullying, pestering and persistent reprimands, amongst other behavior. It has even become a way for failing companies to drive employees to quit. One out of every…
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Lower House passes bill revising foreign residency rules
The Lower House passed bills Friday making it easier for the Justice Ministry’s Immigration Bureau to keep tabs on foreigners who have overstayed their visas as well as others residing legally in the country. A new form of identification, called a “zairyu” (residence) card, will replace alien registration cards, with the information on them kept…
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Immigration revision set to be passed
Compromise paves way for state-issued foreigner cards The ruling and opposition camps have revised a contentious set of immigration bills in a way that increases government scrutiny of both legal and illegal foreign residents while extending additional conveniences, according to a draft obtained Thursday by The Japan Times. Legislators from the Liberal Democratic Party-New Komeito…
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Foreigners stage a sit-in outside Diet to protest immigration bills
About 20 foreign workers [including members of NUGW Tokyo Nambu] and their supporters staged a sit-in Tuesday in front of the Diet to demand that bills to revise the immigration law be scrapped. The bills, now before the Lower House Judicial Affairs Committee, would put a greater burden on foreign workers and violate their rights,…
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Nova chief admits skimming funds
In April 2007, the Supreme Court ruled the way the company calculated its cancellation policies was illegal and ordered Nova Corp. to repay about ¥310,000 to a Tokyo man who received no refund when he canceled his contract. Faced with mounting debts, Sahashi in July 2007 allegedly diverted nearly ¥320 million from an employment benefit…
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Ex-Nova president pleads not guilty
According to the indictment, in July 2007, Sahashi conspired with a 50-year-old Nova executive in charge of finance to embezzle the reserve funds of a mutual aid organization for Nova Group employees chaired by Sahashi. The money was transferred to a bank account of an affiliate company. The prosecutors said that on the night before…
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The issue that dares not speak its name
In Japanese, “racial discrimination” is jinshu sabetsu. That is the established term used in official translations of international treaties (such as the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, or CERD) that Japan has signed up to. However, the Japanese media won’t couch the discussion in these terms. This was visible during the…
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Nova founder faces trial
The founder of Japan’s failed language school chain Nova went on trial on Monday charged with embezzlement over a scandal that left thousands of foreign teachers without jobs. Nova, whose schools were once ubiquitous across Japanese cities, filed for bankruptcy protection in 2007 after the government ordered it to halt part of its operations over insufficient…
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Ex-Nova president admits to embezzling, but counsel pleads not guilty
The former president of English conversation school operator Nova Corp. admitted to embezzling employment benefit funds shortly before the company went bankrupt at his first court hearing Monday at the Osaka District Court. But defense counsel for Nozomu Sahashi, 57, claimed his actions were in the interest of the employees and do not constitute the…
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Ex-NOVA president admits diverting funds but says it wasn’t embezzlement
[Former Nova President Nozomu] Sahashi is under indictment on charges of embezzlement in the conduct of business for transferring 320 million yen from the account of the employees’ mutual assistance association into another account in July 2007, exchanging the money for a check and placing the funds in an affiliate’s account. A prosecutor said in…