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Dispute over police actions compounds traffic tragedy
Long detentions and interrogations are common in Japan — whatever the nationality. “This is surely one of the very few democratic countries where the police can detain someone for four months after a traffic accident,” says Lawrence Repeta of Omiya Law School. Repeta says such detentions reflect the unequal standing in Japan between defense lawyers…
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Japan strips shelves of books on ‘foreigner crime’
Japanese convenience store chain FamilyMart and other retailers are pulling copies of a book on ?foreigner crime? from their shelves after a wave of complaints, the stores said on Monday. The front cover of ?Shocking Foreigner Crime: The Undercover File?, published in Japanese, features caricatures of non-Japanese, alongside the question: ?Is it all right to…
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One-third of major firms have workers who do at least 100 hours overtime a month
One-third of major firms in Japan employ workers who are putting in 100 hours or more of overtime work a month, a survey by the Central Labor Relations Commission has found. The survey, which comes as the government is pushing for the introduction of a “white-collar exemption” system to exempt salaried workers from regular working…
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Seizures rising over unpaid health insurance premiums
Municipal governments increasingly are seizing assets of individuals who are behind in their national health insurance premium payments, an Asahi Shimbun survey shows. The survey showed such asset seizures rose an average 1.7-fold from fiscal 2001 to 2005 in the nation’s 15 largest cities and Tokyo’s 23 wards. National health insurance programs cover self-employed people,…
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Magazine plays to Japanese xenophobia
Available in mainstream bookstores, magazine targets Iranians, Chinese, Koreans and US servicemen The recent release of a glossy magazine devoted to the foreign-led crime wave supposedly gripping Japan has raised fears of a backlash against the country’s foreign community, just as experts are calling for a relaxation of immigration laws to counter rapid population decline.Secret…
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Racist Comic Book on Convenience Store Shelves
Here?s a … publication, apparently available at convenience stores, courtesy of friend Steve (who took the trouble to purchase, scan, and help publicize this issue). Entitled ?GAIJIN [sic] HANZAI URA FILE?, it publicizes all the underground evils that gaijin in Japan [supposedly] do… Here are some ?highlights?: Back Page: ??????????????47000?!! 47,000 crimes by foreigners each…
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Number of non-regular workers up nearly 1 million
The number of non-regular workers with employment contracts of up to one year increased by 995,000, or 14.8%, in 2005 from 2000, a government report showed Wednesday, underscoring that companies are refraining from employing regular workers to cut labor costs. The number of non-regular employees totaled 7,716,000 in 2005 while that of regular workers with…
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4 temp firms ‘in 300 mil. yen tax dodge’
Four temporary staffing agencies in three prefectures have been accused of evading more than 300 million yen in consumption tax by establishing dummy companies to which they pretended to outsource job placements, The Yomiuri Shimbun learned Thursday. The revelation comes at a time when the national tax authorities have been stepping up investigations into evasion…
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Recruiter held over dispatch of trainee
Police on Wednesday arrested the representative director of an Okayama-based recruitment cooperative on suspicion of illegally dispatching an Indonesian trainee to an unauthorized local factory. The Okayama and Hiroshima prefectural police jointly began investigating Keisuke Tsuruno, 60, the representative director of Sanyo Intec, earlier in the day on suspicion of violating the Immigration Control and…
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Osaka Labor Bureau probes Yamada Denki
The Maebashi-based firm, one of the nation’s largest consumer electronics retailers, is suspected of ordering the salespeople to confirm and promise to follow 35 instructions on a checklist at the Labi 1 Namba outlet in Naniwa Ward, Osaka. The labor bureau will clarify the circumstances surrounding the dispatched salespeople. The outlet has not revealed how…