Japan Press Weekly

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2018 October 31 - November 6 TOP3 [LABOR]

JCP meets with bar association lawyers over the issue of foreign workers in Japan

The Japanese Communist Party Dietmembers' Group on October 30 held a meeting with Japan Federation of Bar Association lawyers in the Diet building to exchange opinions over a legal change to accept more foreign workers.

A bill to revise the Immigration Control Act, likely to be a key issue in the extraordinary Diet session, will create a new status of residence for foreigners in order to accept more workers from abroad, mainly from other Asian countries. The Abe government wants to enact the bill before the session ends.

Lawyer Ichikawa Masashi said he is opposed to the bill as it leaves the problematic foreign trainee program unchanged. Ichikawa stressed the need to guarantee foreign workers the right to change workplaces as well as the need to expel exploitative brokers and go-betweens.

Under the bill, foreign trainees are not allowed for up to ten years to bring their families to Japan and live together. Ichikawa said, "This is too long a family separation in the light of European standards and of universal human rights."

The problem of the involvement of malicious middleman companies in the industrial trainee and technical internship program remains unresolved. "Without resolving this problem, the law revision will only worsen the situation," warned lawyer Ibusuki Shoichi.

JCP member of the Lower House Shiokawa Tetsuya agreed on the necessity of eradicating exploitative brokers from the on-the-job training program and of ensuring the foreign trainees' right to the freedom to change workplaces.

Past related article:
> Abe gov’t new policy on foreign workers increases concern in regard to human rights violations [August 23, 2018]