Tag - u-s-labor

 
Menu
Search
 
May 06, 2024
 

Today's print edition

Home Delivery
Subscribe for more access

U S LABOR

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 war, and laying the legal groundwork for an official national military.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jul 30, 2013
South Korea court orders Mitsubishi Heavy to compensate for forced labor
The Busan High Court orders Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to pay 80 million won (about ¥7 million) to the families of five deceased Koreans who were forced to work for the company during Japan's colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.
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 those employees who bring a bentō lunch box for their midday meal. When the clock strikes 12, those eating out get up and leave, while the lunch box bunch march off to the kitchen to enjoy their bentō and hot, freshly made soup.
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 never seen a waiter with an armband reading "We demand wage hikes."
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
JAPAN
Mar 26, 2013
Osaka city survey on labor plans ruled illegal
A prefectural labor panel rules that the mandatory questionnaire that the Osaka Municipal Government issued to its employees about their union activities constituted an unfair and illegal labor practice.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Economy
Mar 26, 2013
Veteran of labor negotiation battles helping Myanmar workers unionize
Shigeru Nakajima is helping Myanmar's burgeoning democracy by encouraging laborers in the country to unionize and helping the groups take root there.
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.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 14, 2013
Hollowing-out hurting factory ranks
The nation's once-thriving manufacturing sector saw its total workforce fall below 10 million for the first time in 51 years in December — down sharply from an October 1992 peak, when it employed just over 16 million, government data has shown.
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.
EDITORIALS
Jan 22, 2013
The problem of power harassment
One in four workers in Japan experienced power harassment over the past three years, according to a recent survey by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry. The poll of 4,580 companies with 30 or more employees, conducted between July and September of 2012, also found that 45.2 percent of the surveyed companies saw the issue of power harassment raised by employees during the past three years, and 32 percent recognized power harassment cases within their companies.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LABOR PAINS
Jan 22, 2013
AKB48: Unionize and take back your lost love lives
They started performing on stages in Tokyo's Akihabara electronics district, and today their ubiquity is unrivaled. The current flavors of the month pepper the TV schedules and covers of weekly magazines all year round. In Tokyo, you can't swing a carrot without hitting a giant poster of one or a bunch of the all-grinning, all-dancing "Vegetable Sisters." AKB48 are, hands down, the busiest and most successful girl group in Japan.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Jan 22, 2013
Tokyo: What do you think of AKB48's no-love-life clause?
I can understand their handlers want to keep the girls potentially available, just as I'm sure they want their stable to concentrate on their performances, not boys. It works to prevent any scandals too, while maintaining a pure image in a very Japanese way, where the puppet masters keep a very tight rein.
JAPAN
Jan 21, 2013
Japanese execs shanghaied in Chinese labor dispute
Employees at an electronics plant in Shanghai who locked up about 10 of the company's Japanese executives for two days to demand better pay and working conditions released them early Sunday after police intervention.
Japan says Biden's description of nation as xenophobic is 'unfortunate'
The National Diet building in Tokyo
As visitors surge, Japan seeks ways to make tourism eco-friendly
Much like other hot spots across Okinawa, Onna has diligently strived to captivate both domestic and international tourists, while at the same time grappling with the environmental strain induced by the influx of visitors.
G7 eyes plan on U.S.-led $50 billion aid package for Ukraine
A local resident visits the Lychakiv cemetery in Lviv, Ukraine, on Thursday. The U.S. is in talks with close partners to lead a group of allies that would give as much as $50 billion in aid to Ukraine.
Japan drops to 70th in press freedom rankings
A businessman reads a newspaper outside a train station in Tokyo.
Kishida talks up bolstered Latin American ties as China cements position
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida holds a news conference in Sao Paulo on Saturday.
'Monster' Inoue ready to tear down Luis Nery in title defense at Tokyo Dome
Naoya Inoue (left) and Luis Nery following a pre-fight news conference in Yokohama on Saturday, two days ahead of their super bantamweight title fight.
Debate on constitutional revision at a standstill despite Kishida's pledges
With less than two months left before the conclusion of the current session of parliament, any possibility that Prime Minister Fumio Kishida can deliver constitutional reform before the end of his term as Liberal Democratic Party president in late September, as he has promised, appears remote.
Sapporo court ruling on Ainu fishing rights presents tough questions
A traditional Ainu preserved food called <i>satchep</i> (dried fish) being made at the government-run National Ainu Museum and Park, nicknamed Upopoy, in the town of Shiraoi, Hokkaido, on Dec. 25. The Sapporo District Court ruled last month that the Raporo Ainu Nation's rights as an Indigenous people did not extend to having an inherent right to fish for commercial reasons.
With eye on China, defense chiefs agree to bolster interoperability
From left: U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Australian defense chief Richard Marles, Japanese Defense Minister Minoru Kihara and Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro hold a joint news conference in Honolulu on Thursday.
Yellow sand allergy: A health issue made worse by climate change
A screenshot of the Meteorological Agency's satellite image of clouds and yellow sand (in pink) on Sunday.

Podcast

From easily navigable train stations to the helpfulness of its municipal staff, Tokyo has earned high praise for its commitment to accessibility for disabled travelers.
[Rebroadcast] Japan is doing better on accessibility than you may think

Longform

Rows of irises resemble a rice field at the Peter Walker-designed Toyota Municipal Museum of Art.
The 'outsiders' creating some of Japan's greenest spaces
By Stephen Mansfield

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Cultural properties:A Fujiya Hotel insider’s view
Cultural properties:A Fujiya Hotel insider’s view

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS note

Read more

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER