While Taro Aso’s public statements as foreign minister have done little to help ease tensions between Tokyo and the rest of Asia, a family connection to wartime forced labor has raised further questions over his ability to oversee good relations with Japan’s neighbors.

Speaking at the opening of the Kyushu National Museum in Fukuoka last October, he described Japan as “one nation, one civilization, one language, one culture, and one race, the like of which there is no other on earth.” 

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Only two weeks after it was sent to the chamber’s floor and with little debate, the Lower House has passed a bill that will allow the fingerprinting and photographing of foreigners as they enter Japan. 

At present, the United States is the only country that photographs and fingerprints entrants, although a few European countries fingerprint foreigners when they apply for visas at overseas diplomatic missions. 

Japan used to fingerprint foreign residents for residency-registration purposes. But facing strong opposition, especially from the country’s Korean residents, the Justice Ministry abolished the system in 1999. Even when it was taking fingerprints of foreign residents, the ministry’s official position was that the fingerprint records held by the ministry would never be used in criminal investigations. The Criminal Procedure Law also states that the authorities may fingerprint a person without a warrant only when the person is being held in custody as a criminal suspect.

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[The Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy] will discuss changing the country’s immigration rules so that more skilled foreigners can come to Japan for work. An outline is slated for release in May.

Meanwhile, the panel also agreed to discuss measures to address problems that may arise from an increase in the number of foreign residents in Japan. Such measures are to be finalized by the end of this year.

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For about a decade the Japanese government has been loosening its labor laws. Companies that were forced to restructure in the 1990s demanded more flexibility in hiring, so the government expanded the number of job types that could be covered by temporary workers. The result has been a steady erosion of wages, since companies who hire temps deal with agencies rather than with unions or the workers themselves. They ask for lower wages and the temp agencies accommodate them.

On average, a full-time temp worker takes home about one-third the pay of a full-time company employee. But full time employees may lose even that advantage if the government and business community have their way.

Last June, the Japan Federation of Economic Organizations (Keidanren) proposed that regulations standardizing the 8-hour workday be eased.

In practice, what this means is that Japanese companies will no longer be compelled by law to pay office workers overtime if they put in more than eight hours; which in turn means that companies will be able to compel workers to stay at the office longer without adding to their labor costs. In the only country in the world that has a word for “death from overwork” (karoshi), such a development is chilling.

Next year, the government plans to submit a bill to the Diet for a Labor Contract Law, which will allow any company to set its own labor standards.

The bill will include the formation of a special commission that ostensibly protects workers’ rights, but such a law would in effect eliminate labor unions since it’s unlikely employers would allow collective bargaining clauses in their employment contracts.

At present, anyone who is fired for reasons they believe are unfair can take their employer to court. That option would probably become more difficult under the Labor Contract Law.

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The panel will take up various problems facing foreign residents, including economic issues and language and other handicaps their children may face, [LDP Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo] Abe said. It will also try to ascertain how they have been accepted by local communities, he said. “Having admitted them into the country, Japan bears a certain degree of responsibility for their wellbeing,”  he said.

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The Nambu Foreign Workers Caucus will hold its Third Annual General Meeting on Sunday April 16 from 1pm to 5pm at the Shimbashi Fukushi Kaikan (Shimbashi 6-4), a short walk from the Nambu HQ office.

We have accomplished a great deal over the past year and have a great deal of action ahead of us. The AGM agenda includes elections, constitutional amendments, policy debate, dispute reports and much more.

[The director of a major Tokyo-based dispatch company] also said many Japanese employers prevent foreigners from signing up for the social insurance system because they do not want to shoulder part of the cost of the insurance. They have not shed their tendency to pay low wages to foreigners, she added.

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In another controversial plan, the Justice Ministry will use electronic maps to locate foreigners believed to be staying here illegally, as well as businesses that have hired illegal workers, sources said.

Criticism had already been lodged against the plan, much like the Justice Ministry’s system set up in 2004 of having the public send e-mail information about foreigners who seem to be living in the country illegally. The Japan Federation of Bar Associations has criticized the e-mail tip-off system for encouraging citizens to betray their neighbors. The federation said the system should end.

http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200604060246.html