Tag - labor

 
 

LABOR

Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LABOR PAINS
Oct 7, 2013
The Special Dismissal Zone: where legal protections no longer apply
The government's Special Employment Zone wheeze has already been dubbed the Special Dismissal Zone, or kaiko tokku, by the media.
COMMUNITY / Voices / COMMUNITY CHEST
Oct 7, 2013
Fukushima, suicide and nihongo fluency: readers' mails
A grab bag of readers' mail in response to recent Community articles.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LABOR PAINS
Sep 23, 2013
Matahara: turning the clock back on women's rights
Both statutory and case law are crystal clear on the illegality of firings due to pregnancy. But the law is one thing; practice is quite another.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 9, 2013
Labor's crushing defeat ends a five-act political tragedy
For the Australian Labor Party, a crushing defeat on Saturday night was the finale of a tragedy in five acts.
COMMUNITY / Issues / LABOR PAINS
Aug 19, 2013
Union, business concerns put limits on freedom of speech
Hot on the heels of their romp to victory in the race for control of the House of Councilors, the Liberal Democratic Party is chomping at the bit to overhaul the Constitution, which has not been amended since it was signed into law in 1946. The ruling party proposes gutting Article 9, which forever bans...
COMMUNITY / Issues / LABOR PAINS
Jul 15, 2013
Unwritten perks can trump work rules, contracts, even laws
At a certain company, workers take their lunch break every day from 12 to 1 p.m. But just 10 minutes before noon, a small contingent of workers get up and leave the room. A few minutes later the fragrance of miso soup wafts in from the kitchen. Employees take turns making the soup for the benefit of...
COMMUNITY / Issues / LABOR PAINS
Jun 18, 2013
Why workers can no longer wear their demands on their sleeves
Dear reader, where are you from? To what era do you belong? I was born in 1971 in Japan and grew up here, too, but I've never — in all my years visiting hotels, restaurants, shops or government offices — seen workers wearing vests, armbands, badges, ribbons or bandanas with political messages. I've...
EDITORIALS
Jun 14, 2013
Tricks with labor rules
Labor groups suspect that the Abe government's push for more workers with 'permanent employee status' is a ruse to give employers more flexibility to fire.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
May 28, 2013
When can you fight a job transfer?
A foreign reader writes: "My husband is working for a company that has branches in Shinagawa, Narita and Ibaraki. He used to work at the Shinagawa branch, and then he was forced to move to the Narita branch.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LABOR PAINS
May 21, 2013
Precedent backs (nearly) equal pay for equal work
In 2012, Japan had 51.73 million workers, of which 33.3 million were regular employees, or seishain, according to the latest survey by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. Contingent, or nonpermanent, workers (including part-timers, haken dispatch and shokutaku semiregular employees) numbered 18.43 million, over 35.5 percent of the workforce.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LABOR PAINS
Apr 16, 2013
Employers' 'box them in, drive them out' tactics fail legal test
Surely few employees would jump out of bed every morning, itching to start work at the 'Department for Driving Them Out'? But what is an oidashi-beya? And what scary entities are to be driven out?
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Apr 9, 2013
Japan's foreign trainee system said still plagued by rights abuses
Last month, a Chinese trainee went on a stabbing rampage at a Hiroshima Prefecture seafood company where he worked, killing the president and an employee and wounding six others.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Apr 9, 2013
Whatever happened to the Goldman Sachs union?
In February 2012, a small band of sacked workers in Japan took on one of the world's biggest investment banks, Goldman Sachs, unionizing in a bid to keep their jobs and win a better deal from a firm they believed had treated them unfairly.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LABOR PAINS
Mar 19, 2013
Labor law reform raises rather than relieves workers' worries
A new specter hangs over Japan: the specter of insecure employment. The source of this insecurity is the August 2012 reform of the Labor Contract Act related to fixed-term employment.
EDITORIALS
Feb 25, 2013
Decline of manufacturing
A labor force survey shows the number of people employed in Japan's manufacturing industry dipping below 10 million for the first time since 1961.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Jan 28, 2013
Give sufficient notice when breaking an employment contract
Reader JA asks if it's legal for an employer to demand compensation if an employee quits their job partway through their contract.

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?