Japan Press Weekly

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2015 July 1 - 7 TOP3 [LABOR]

Chinese trainees win fight for unpaid wages against textile firm

Chinese trainees, who worked at a textile company in Tokushima Prefecture under the international technical intern training program, succeeded in recovering unpaid wages from the company with the help of a trade union and the Japanese Communist Party.

They came to Japan after October 2012 and worked at a textile factory run by Nissan Tokiwa. They were forced to work from 7:30 am to 11:00 pm a day but were allowed to take only two days off a year. The company provided the trainees with overtime pay of 350 yen per hour, though Tokushima’s minimum hourly wage is 679 yen.

In April this year, the trainees asked for help from the Tokushima Prefectural Federation of Trade Unions (Tokushima Roren) which is affiliated with the National Confederation of Trade Unions (Zenroren). They claimed that they will most likely be sent back to China without receiving the payment they deserve. Supported by Tokushima Roren, they started to negotiate with Nissan Tokiwa, demanding the payment of the back wages. Seeking to resolve this problem, JCP members of the House of Councilors Koike Akira and Nihi Sohei made representations to the ministries of Labor and Justice and took up this issue in Diet meetings.

With these efforts, the trainees on May 26 successfully had the company agree to pay all the unpaid wages amounting to around 0.5-1 million yen per person. The payments will be made in three installments and the trainees received the second payment on June 30.

A 32-year-old female trainee, who came from China’s Jiangsu Province, said, “I appreciate all the help from Tokushima Roren and the JCP.”

Moriguchi Hideaki, secretary general of Tokushima Roren, said that such a labor issue arising in the foreign trainee program is not unique to Nissan Tokiwa. The program is supposed to assist developing countries through a transfer of technology, skills, and knowledge, but in reality, many Japanese companies use the program just to obtain low-wage workers, Moriguchi pointed out.

In addition to problems of low or unpaid wages, the foreign trainee program often leads to slave-like working conditions, citing an example where a company refused to give days off and even forced sick workers to work, Moriguchi said. He blamed the government for turning a blind eye to this situation of blatant labor exploitation.

Prime Minister Abe Shinzo submitted to the current session of the Diet a bill to expand the use of foreign trainees. The need now is to strengthen measures to protect trainees’ rights.


Past related article:
> JCP Koike: End illegal labor practices against foreign trainees [May 14, 2015]