Dear Minister of Health, Labor and Welfare Yoichi Masuzoe, I can still recall the phone conversation with my spouse on June 2, when I was crying profusely due to harassment at work. Earlier that day, the manager of my unit asked me to resign, stating that one of the deputy managers didn't like me. On being asked what exactly my mistake was, I was told not to question their authority and not to waste their time.
In the past 18 months at work, I had been harassed on many occasions after blowing the whistle on my deputy manager for handing out orders that were clearly not in line with our global policies. Every time this was brought to their attention, they would get furious and retaliate. Our human resources manager threw up his hands to indicate his helplessness at having to act according to the whims of management rather than as an advocate for employees.
On consulting the Labor Advisory and Inspection Services Department, I was told that more than 45 percent of the cases they have dealt with this decade were related to harassment in the workplace.