Japan's Unpopular Guest Worker Expansion Mirrors U.S. Mistakes
Published:
Wed, Jan 2nd 2019 @ 12:29 pm EST by Van Esser
Using what has been described as “strong-arm tactics,†Japan’s ruling Liberal Democrat Party pushed legislation through the Diet (Japanese parliament) early last month to expand the nation’s guest worker program. Even with Japan’s extremely low unemployment rate, the law is controversial. A Dec. 17 poll found that 55 percent of people in Japan opposed the law. But that apparently did not bother the ruling Party because it rammed the bill through the Diet rather build broad public consensus on the need for change. That’s not unlike how the ruling elites in the United States have pushed through guest worker programs that are detrimental to American workers.
Japan created its guest worker program -- The Technical Internship Trainee Programme -- in 1993 as a way of helping people from developing countries learn new skills they could use when returning home. But it was soon criticized as being filled with loopholes that allowed companies to abuse its terms, pay less than the minimum wage, and make workers put in unpaid overtime. If any of this sounds familiar it’s because this is exactly what happened to the U.S. Exchange Visitor program.
https://www.numbersusa.com/blog/japans-unpopular-guest-worker-expansion-mirrors-us-mistakes
