The Article Wrote:1. I do work overtime, but overtime is never paid.
2. It’s usual to work more than 80 hours overtime a month.
3. I don’t have a break, or at the most, 10 minutes a day.
4. I work on my days off. Actually, I’m not even sure when my days off are.
5. There is no paid time off system or if there is such a system, I am never allowed to use it.
6. I never get reimbursed for expenses and always have to pay out of pocket.
7. There is no social insurance, benefits, or pension. If I ask about this, I would be bullied.
8. If I converted my monthly wage into an hourly rate equivalent, it would be less than minimum wage.
9. Regardless of how long I work overtime, the overtime payment is a fixed amount.
10. The company is constantly hiring new employees.
11. The advertised job wage is different from the actual amount paid.
12. There are no time cards or someone else punches you in and out.
13. There are one or more workers who can’t come to the office due to psychotic depression or nervous breakdown.
14. I’m so busy that I often can’t get adequate sleep.
15. There is no union or company regulations.
16. Some employees are promoted to an administrative position right after joining the company, but there is no extra remuneration for that.
17. Employees have to run private errands for their employers.
18. There is a slogan saying “work until you die” on the company wall.
19. Abuse of power and sexual harassment are very common.
20. There are so many affiliate companies and subsidiaries, though I don’t even know what those companies do.
21. Whenever some incident happens, the company changes its name.
22. There are training sessions, which use what can be considered brainwashing or hazing.
23. Threats such as “I’m going to kill you” can be commonly heard at the office.
24. Violence is rampant.
25. All the supervisors are relatives of the CEO.
26. I was told to quit the company in a roundabout way like, “you may not be cut out for this position.”
27. I can’t quit the job. If I say I’m going to quit, I’ll be threatened that I will have to pay damages for quitting.
28. They don’t provide the necessary documents such as the separation slip to those who try to quit.
29. The worker’s average age is really young.
30. The rate of people leaving their jobs within 3 years is really high.

Diffusor Wrote:First, it's worth noting that the name "Watami" translates roughly to "the people of harmony." This is actually common in Japan - words like "harmony" often serve only as empty, meaningless racist dogwhistles. The fact that the owner of "People of Harmony" is anything but harmonious is a perfect example of this. "Omotenashi" is similar, as anyone who lives in Japan knows. There is a list of words that are "essentially Japanese" that are really just positive myths the Japanese want to believe about themselves (and that foreigners eat right up). The term "dogwhistle" refers to the fact that, while these words seem innocuous and empty to you and me, they carry a lot of emotional power and will elicit a very specific response from Japanese people (and in those who are in love with Japan).

This is part of the reason why so many Black Companies can get away with their crimes - they play to people's emotional, conditioned responses - People of Harmony? Why that sounds so quintessentially Japanese! How could that POSSIBLY be a bad company? (If you're not American, think of the word "harmony" as being similar to the American's mindless chants of "freedom" and how mindlessly Americans can be when consuming things that celebrate their "freedom.") This is part of what people are saying when they say "sho ga nai." That's how things are. That's the price we pay for such beautiful harmony. It doesn't matter how many people have to be worked to death - that is the price of "harmony." (Again, a lot like how many rabid Americans gladly exchange their rights for more "freedom.")

The other point that stands out here, and really needs to be said in defence of Japanese culture is - when Japanese companies abide by real, actual laws - they're actually pretty f-ing great. I'm from the Midwest (Indiana) and let me tell you - jobs at Japanese car companies - either on the factory line or in the offices - are HIGHLY valued. The companies have a very good reputation for good pay and good benefits. They are simply the best in the region - and, notably, American-made Japanese cars are simply some of the best on the market.

I interviewed with some of them, and the reasons for this that they cited are the exact same things that make life in Japan so bleak: group harmony. They believed in fostering an environment of cooperation and harmony, and guess what? When Japanese companies follow labor laws? They DO create an environment of harmony and cooperation.

When old, Japanese men run the show unchallenged by any higher authority - unbound by any law - they become monsters. That is really what's happening with "Black Companies" - hell, with Japanese society as a whole - power corrupts, as they say, and old, Japanese men have nearly unlimited power within the borders of Japan.

In the US, though? That power and privilege crumbles, and when that power and privilege disappears, the values of "harmony" and cooperation get to actually thrive. It's a really good argument for why we need to exchange cultures and listen to the foreigners among us - when ideas cross cultures, it's very common for their true value to shine through. It turns out that Japanese harmony + American meritocracy = a really awesome place to work.

That's an encouraging message, because America certainly has tons of problems with "Black Companies" as well, for very much the same reason Japan does (tons of cultural myths about why we are just plain the best on the planet.) When we break down those myths, we start to see reality, and we start to get better at what we do. And that's actually pretty awesome.

Short answer to the problem? More foreign companies in Japan run by foreign executives, similar to the Japanese companies in America run by Japanese execs. Cultural diffusion is a very, very good thing.

Stansfield123 Wrote:...

Tzadeck Wrote:

Stansfield123 Wrote:...

One of my favorite criticisms of philosophy (and I majored in it), is Richard Feynman's observation that philosophers think they need to strive for precise language when in fact they should be striving for clear language.

Anyway, I'm not sure how coming up with an exact definition of morality and then seeing what meets that definition is a useful process at all. And I think you're using the word 'logical' wrong--seeing whether something meets a definition is not 'logic,' so I don't see how this conversation would become more logical merely by introducing a definition.

Stansfield123 Wrote:Logic can only be applied to words that have meaning. The role of definitions is to give words meaning.

Surely, you do understand why you can't use words that don't have clearly defined referents in reality, to make a statement that has truth value?

Danchan Wrote:I can't speak for all of them, but I know at least one U.S. company here in Japan which behaves just appallingly in how it exploits its workers.

Stansfield123 Wrote:I don't think you've established that getting rid of "black companies" would be a good thing.

vileru Wrote:I suspect that some American companies (usually the ones that don't have stellar reputations in the U.S.) try to exploit cultural norms when they operate in foreign countries.

Quote:There's nothing controversial about assuming that black companies aren't a good thing. I can't think of any mainstream ethical framework, even thoroughly libertarian ones that champion self-interest, that would dare to assume otherwise.

kitakitsune Wrote:I won't really comment on the cultural dimensions of black companies in Japan but I will state that the problem is compounded by Japan's rigid labor laws which heavily restrict labor mobility.

It's very easy to quit a black company in America and move on to another job. It's a very difficult and costly process in Japan.

vileru Wrote:Could you share its name, or at least some stories? I'm not trying to relate the two, but McDonald's was under fire a few years ago because of several reports of karoshi (過労死).

vix86 Wrote:I don't believe the libertarian mindset would necessarily make a statement about the good or bad of a black company. It would simply come down to an issue of what the two parties would agree on. Something to the affect of "Free market would dictate whether the operating practices of a company are "good" or "bad."

vix86 Wrote:But to get back to the point. No strong Libertarian is probably going to say that "black companies are bad, so we need to do something to stop them from operating this way," because it goes counter to the ideology that people are able to do what they want as long as they have a choice and are not infringing on others' own ability to do the same. (emphasis added)

vileru Wrote:Does anyone know if there's a Japanese site like Glassdoor? It seems, in general, Japanese people are much more reluctant than Westerners to badmouth companies. That may be another reason for the existence of black companies in Japan. Although, their reluctance is a bit counterintuitive since lawsuits are less prevalent in Japan, and so there's less legal risk. At any rate, sites like Glassdoor have made it much more difficult for unfair business practices to go unnoticed, and the anonymity factor may make people less reluctant to talk (although, there's no such thing as anonymity online). To deal with all the bad PR, some companies allegedly have employees post positive reviews and attack negative ones. While it's nice to know what the top 10 black companies are, there are probably many more. Sites like Glassdoor increase transparency and accountability for not just 10 companies, but (hopefully) all of them.

Quote:This is actually the reason why I said no mainstream libertarian ethical framework would oppose the assumption. A lot of these companies deprive their employees of their autonomy. They do things like lie about hours and wages/salaries on job ads, withhold wages/salaries/benefits, and stonewall people who are trying to resign. All of these actions deprive people of their ability to freely choose, and it doesn't matter whether these actions are good for the economy or not. A libertarian who supports slavery, even an economically-minded one, nonetheless violates core libertarian principles. This violation holds whether the market votes with trillions of dollars or not even a penny.