UKI's Blog for CES 301

Final Project

2010-05-04T16:38:00.000-07:00

In order to view my final project, please proceed to the link posted below.
You will need to make it full screen mode to view the files nicely!!

http://prezi.com/jrtzgkfvsku4/ces-301-final-project/

Conclusion of the Dissmissed TEmporary Workers in Japan

2010-04-19T09:26:00.001-07:00

The first critique of the first point is law does not have specific regulations of 30 days period. This means the law does not say that the 30 days period is whether 30 days of work or 30 days of contracts which include day offs and actually working day would be less than 30 days. The second critique is there are no regulations of types of jobs. There must be some regulations for the job selections because some types of job have dangerous working conditions such as skyscraper constructions, constructions, demolitions, and some facilities that use chemicals. This means there can be higher rate of accident. However, the law does not protect and provide them workers’ accident compensation insurances.

Another critique for the second point which is about releasing the information of contract service fees appeared to be very ambiguous. The government’s purpose of revising this part of law is because the government tries to protect workers from getting salary deducted by unknown reasons. However, it does not regulate the rate of fee (%) so that many temporary work intercessor companies can have free competitions. Although it boosts the free competitions, it does not improve the fundamental treatments for workers because if intercessor companies apply high rate of fee, they can be benefited from, but workers have still hard time making their own lives.

The deregulation of temporary worker approved easily disposal employments, and the numbers of proper full-time employments have decreased. In order to gain the seat of full-time employment, people have to win the seat of cruel musical chairs game that have overwhelmingly few seats available compared to enormous participants. However, if they lose the game, it is the matter of life; whether they die or alive. In order to improve this situation, there have been many skill training programs were born, but the numbers of chairs available do not change. The deregulation allowed employers to hire people without available chairs. Employers do not want to let this opportunity go away because temporary workers are so handy and disposal. Therefore, law needs to regulated and balance the numbers of available chairs. The most important and urgent issue is to create the proper employments that eventually eliminate wealth gap and poverty.

The camp was closed after the government opened the space for those dismissed workers and took over the volunteered camp, but the executives officially close the end of June 2009. There were thousands of people were helped, five hundred people came for the consolation, and only three hundred people received social welfare (Ogawa 56). Throughout the durations of camp and consolations, it clearly disclosed the reality of poverty, and it is very hard to get out from the hardships once people fall into the worst situations. It is also true that these people are victims of winded social separatism structures, and it does not mean that those people have been lazy or not working hard enough.

The total of their donations came to 50 million Yen (approximately 570.3thausand U.S. Dollars) (Toukairin 95). This means society thought people need help. However, the Japanese government has been targeted for the blame because of slow work and thoughtless speeches such as people who were dismissed seem like lazy and not willing to work. It is the time for people to re-examine real individuality and social solidarity. In order to improve the fundamentals for all the populations, people need to reinforce social solidarity and focus on less individuality. Japan also need ask question about the companies’ social responsibility as well as governmental reconstructions of laws for those suffered from the incidents. Revised Laws of Temporary Work will eventually protect those who still staying the same situations, but further revisions are required for better improvements in order to create a stable and peaceful society. Those workers during the incidents were victims of winded social structure and economic system. This incident clearly depicted that the first people who will be victims and suffering is people who are categorized as low social status.

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15 Useful Resources

2010-04-12T02:27:00.000-07:00

These websites listed below are for those who would like to know more about the disposable temporary workers in Japan, its background and history of it, and how the government is going to work on it.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hgeYhOyGt58Hu2xBXrJQMDfGPgMg

This article is written by Satoru Dodo and published by AFP on the google news. This news tell us that how the life of fired temporary workers and its problems.

http://factsanddetails.com/japan.php?itemid=907&catid=24&subcatid=156#02

This website explains whole system of “freeter,” “Part-time,” and “temporary worker.” It is very helpful because the whole working system is different from the one from the U.S.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/07/business/global/07yen.html?_r=1

This article is from Bloomberg News in New York Times which explains what the Japanese government is going to do about the Laws of Temporary worker.

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/06/05/business/worldbusiness/05iht-temps.html?pagewanted=1

Written by Steven Brull in the New York Times that explains why many company went for the temporary worker.

http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/business/news/article_1448332.php/YEARENDER_Japan_s_temp_workers_face_gloomy_holidays_with_no_jobs

This article is written by Chie Matsumoto that tells us the cruel reality that struck temporary workers during New Year season. She explains many circumstances that made temporary workers to welcome New Year. By showing the many facts, this article tells us something very important that there are many people who are suffering from poverty even in the developed country.

http://ssjj.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/4/2/201

This article is written by Charles Weathers who is the faculty of Economics in Osaka City University in Japan. It tells us the specifically about Female temporary workers’ fact and reality.

http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst;jsessionid=LQ4f23Rz2YnknG8QmLTvQX2r7hlKnznpZ3gsy2hY3Dnqp2LBMdfH!-1237107531!-279994122?docId=5000377150

This journal article was written by Susan Houseman and Machiko Osawa in Monthly Labor Review. The date goes back to 1995 because the problems of temporary workers have begun around 1995. Even though the article is partially available, we can see that problems of temporary workers continue.

http://www.employmentspot.com/employment-articles/temp-work-pros-and-cons-of-temping/

This website explains the history and the fact of temporary workers and works in Japan that mainly targeted foreigner. This website explains and tells us what it takes and what we need to know before we decide to go for the temporary works.

http://www.japantoday.com/category/business/view/japan-to-ban-in-principle-temp-workers-in-manufacturing

This News Paper article was posted in Kyodo News that is very famous in Japan. This article is about the new laws that bans manufactures to hire overly numbered temporary workers due to prevent the incidents happened in 2008-9 New Year season.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2010/0322/Labor-reforms-Japan-limits-on-part-timers-please-no-one

This article is written by Jonathan Adams that warns the use of temporary workers even though the new law of temporary work has been acted. The author questions how the new law would work and protect the temporary workers.

http://www.employeebenefits.co.uk/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=8810

This article explains the benefit/advantages and disadvantages of full-time work and temporary work in Japan.

http://www.jobsinjapan.com/book/japanese.html

This website explains many circumstances and experiences of working in Japan that is based on real experience. However, the information and experiences would not be necessarily experienced by all workers, so it would be good idea to read this article as one of the references.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3965/is_200001/ai_n8894769/

This website explains the amount of pressure that all students and people in academic field experience from their parents and as social expectations. Due to the educational inflation is Japan, no matter how much a person has the academic background has been not so important. Even though the educational standard has been increasing, many parents expect their children to get “great job” and this article explains how much those expectations become stress.

http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/encyclopedia/Int-Jun/Japanese-Management-Techniques.html

This website explains the benefit and advantages of full-time work with variety aspects, and temporary works including historical backgrounds and contents.

http://www.focusjapan.com/025_15_focus_japan

This website let you virtually explore the process of getting job in Japan.

The Reality of Welfare for Low Income Households

2010-04-10T01:24:00.000-07:00

The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare issued the statement that is about the numbers of low income households that their incomes are lower than the average without savings and/or property.

The ministry estimated that almost 70% of low income households are not receiving the welfare, and the ministry continues the survey.

In 2007, the survey of basic living standard revealed that there are roughly 3.37 million low income households that includes households that receiving the welfare, and 68% that 2.29 million low income households are not receiving the welfare, even though they are applicable. In addition, when we look at the total numbers of household in Japan that include all status of households, the 5% of them are low income household without receiving the welfare.

However, the survey that had been done by the Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications, called National Investigation of Actual Consumption (2004), the survey indicates that there are 1.42 million low income households, and 32% of this number are not receiving the welfare; that is 0.45 million households.

However, there are another survey that indicates the suicide rate differences between average/higher income household and low income households. According to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, 25.3 persons committed suicide within average/higher income households per 100,000, but 54.8 persons committed suicide within low income households per 100,000 (2008). This is the first time that survey indicated the number of suicide within low income households that receive welfare, and roughly 70% of them were suffered from depression. The Ministry is going to set up the plans to mentally help low income people.

Cell Phone Assembly Line in Japan

2010-04-10T00:14:00.000-07:00

In this post, I would like to introduce the story of my brother who has experienced the cell-phone assembly line as a part time job.

There are several leading cell-phone brands in Japan. Most of them use temporary worker as a part time to assemble the cell-phone.

My younger brother applied for this job through temporary employment agency.

Cell-phone brands state that the dormitory is ready for those who are living away from the factory. However, others, who do not have to live in the dormitory, need to wake up at 4:00 am and get ready for the bus which comes and pick them up at 5:00 am. They arrive at the factory around 6:00 am, and start assembling from 7:00 am.

In the first day of the work, people are distributed to specific section after the aptitude test that determines how detailed work they can. My brother was placed the section where people place the CPU chip in the cell-phone.

The schedule and rules were very hard.

The rules that my brother told me that were:

- They are not allowed to talk

- They are not allowed to use their cell-phone

- They cannot take random breaks for bathroom or smoke

- BUT, they can listen to the music with ear-phones or head-phones

The schedules were:

- Work from 7:00 am to 12:00

- Launch time was only 30 minutes

- They work again from 12:30 to 18:00

This is basically 10 hours of work time that against the law, but many brands are functioning like this.

The wage was constituted with two parts. The fixed hourly wage and commission rate, but the commission rate was very low like several ten cents/1.

After one week of work, my brother quitted this job because he was extremely exhausted, and cannot live with it because of overwork and not enough time to sleep to recover. In addition to the tiredness, he told me that the assemble line drove him crazy because the job is so simple and boring. However, he saw many people had gone mad and some security guys came to take those people away.

These jobs can hurt people especially youths who just need money. Those jobs are not mentally and physically healthy.

2010-02-24T22:29:00.000-08:00

During 1990’s, the characteristics of the temporary workers’ problem were mainly for women. Women have fought against improvements of temporary worker’ status since 1990’s to beginning of 2000 (Sekine 76). However, the problems of temporary workers are not only for women, but also they started to become problems for men as well around 2008 (76). The main problem of temporary works is the workers cannot receive any social welfare, such as provided health insurance and unemployment benefit (77). Even though the situations for temporary workers are no longer better than full-time work, the number of people who register for the temporary positions have been increasing. Interestingly enough, the characteristic of the temporary workers are both educated and uneducated. According to the website of Information of Temporary Work, en, explains that the system of becoming temporary workers is very complicated. First, people who are willing to work as temporary worker need to register them to the intercessor companies. Second, those people are asked questions in order for companies to distribute them to the correct spots. Third, people start working, but some fees for companies are deducted from their every month’ salaries. This is a totally disadvantage for the workers, but there are some advantages as well as disadvantages. The advantages are 1) they can choose where to work, 2) they can choose their work contents, and 3) they can experience many kinds of works. The third advantage is also the reason why people choose to be a temporary worker, but there are some disadvantages too. These disadvantages are 1) they cannot receive any benefit or prizes, 2) they cannot receive travel expense allowances, and 3) they may not be able to find next job after their contracts expire.

These people, regardless of their educational background, are willing to work as temporary worker. This is because there are varieties of social and gender expectations exist. According to the temporary work information website, some reasons for choosing to be temporary workers are 1) they would like to help and support their families, even though there are main source of incomes, 2) they would like to experience many types of work, 3) they would like to work to get money, 4) they would like to improve themselves throughout their work experiences, and 5) they would like to earn as much money as possible within limited time. The chart below explains the age distribution of temporary workers. As it showes, the ages from twenty-five to thirty-nine occupy sixty-eight percent. These ages are the time when people are powerfull and spend a lot of time on work.

Working as temporary workers during the age from twenty-five to thirty-nine is very crucial because there is hidden disadvantage; no matter how long they work for the company as a temporary worker, their salary never increase (en). This means that they cannot have enough money to save. Suppose those full-time workers’ salary increases every year, and this means they have enough and more money to save for their children, themselves, and emergency. Temporary workers’ husbandaries stay in the same level, but they are not able to spend money for emergencies, such as the even happened in the December 2008.

This incident was caused not only by the economic crisis, but also the lack of the law protections for the temporary workers. The law of Temporary Work is newly established law and it has been effective only 23 years. Around 1985, the Japanese parliament had approved the Law of Temprary Work because Japanese buisiness circles demanded the support of temporary worker such as tlanslators, stenographers, fast typers. Due to the pressures from the circle, the parliament finally approved the law because they were concered with temporary workers could have been as lobor slaves. After the Japanese bubble economy poped, the government worsen the law. As a result, those temporary workers have been treated as disposal workers to protect the companies’ interests, profits, and full-time workers. Those companies were driven by the “true merit” (Barry 113). Companies actions that threw away unnessesary workers can be explained by Barry’s definition of meritocratic society that Barry explains “equal opprtunities for those with equal native talent” (Barry 112). Those companies that diposed of temporary workers protected their equal opprtunities for full-time worker to stay as-is, because they share the same native talents of being capable of doing same quality of works. Whereas, those temporary workers had to be dismissed because they did not share the native talents as Barry describes. These disposals of temporary workers can be the evidence of Barry’s perspectives of meritocracy that Barry states “opportunities to achieve “merit” are so unequal” (110) because those dismissed workers could not achieve their merits. These merits are the ones that introduced in previouse sections.

However, the indicends which occurred during the time also brings up the issue of winded moral liability. This event is the case of failed moral and collective liability. Those dimissed workers are the ones who have been “orientated towards integration into socioeconomic system rather than separation” (McGary 82). These workers have been sold or rented into sociseconomic system as goods for campanies in order to boost their businesses. The fuel is required in order to make boosters to boost everything, and in this case, the fuel for boosters were the U.S. dallors. However, when global economic started failing, the fuel for the boosters lacks, and as a result the companies detached boosters from their business because unfunctional parts, boosters, only slowdown their businesses. This means salaries that companies pay for those temporary workers became unaffordanble.

Shortly after the event, the society started to be diveded into three that 1) people blame on companies resposibilities, 2) people blame on the Japanese Government’s responsibility, and 3) people blame on those temporary workers’ responsibility.

DISSMISSED TEMP. WORKERS IN JAPAN

2010-02-15T22:29:00.000-08:00

It is still new to our memories that the time when the U.S. dollar and the Japanese Yen exchange rate was reversed. The reasons that cause the reverse of currency exchange rate could be the U.S. government’s poor economic handling, high rate of bankruptcies, auto industries’ business were failing, and surprise attacks of subprime-loans against mainly poor/working class single mothers in the United States. These were the starting points of economic crisis, but very few were concerned with the potential damages to the Japanese economy. As a result of global economic crisis, Japanese industries that mainly rely on exporting goods such as auto industries such as Toyota, Mazda, Nissan, and Honda, and household appliance industries including Sony, Sanyo, Panasonic, and Toshiba dismissed many temporary workers from their facilities. Huge dismissals caused many who were fired to lose their place to live and sleep, money to buy food and tickets to go back their parents’ homes. Those people ended up with being homeless and the numbers of those homeless people enormously increased in big cities such as Tokyo. The overflow of dismissed people became one of the biggest issues in Japan, and they needed help. This event happened in Japan clearly showed the social injustice in a different manner from ones in the U.S. because some issues in the U.S. are race related. However, unlike to the U.S. has variety of race representatives, 99.8% of population in Japan is Japanese. This event was the issue of class, meritocracy, and moral liability regardless of race. The month long event happened during the middle of December 2008 to the middle of January 2009 depicted cruel reality of gaps in pay in Japan.

http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/business/news/article_1448332.php/YEARENDER_Japans_temp_workers_face_gloomy_holidays_with_no_jobs_