China Labour Bulletin is quoted in the following article. Copyright remains with the original publisher.
Mark O'Neill says an account of the exploitation of Chinese workers in highly regulated Japan shows the vulnerability of these migrants
24 June 2011
For more than a century, Chinese have climbed mountains, crossed stormy seas and stowed away in the hope of working overseas. Their dream is a life beyond the poverty of home. But, they are usually exploited by ruthless middlemen and employers. Despite this, the search for a new life continues today, even with the improvements to the lives of tens of millions in China.
Occasionally, reports of foreign sweatshops employing these migrants give us a glimpse of this Chinese diaspora. But the latest revelation of this hidden world comes from an unexpected source - Japan, a country famous for its efficient control of immigration. The plight of the workers was laid bare in a recently published report titled "Throwaway Labour", by China Labour Bulletin. It documents the long hours, low pay and bad living and working conditions of Chinese in farms, textile plants and other factories. It focuses on Japan, but the same story is repeated in many countries. Most revealing is the fact that this exploitation is arranged with an acceptable name - "trainee". Since Japan severely restricts the import of unskilled labour, it had to create a "trainee system" to legalise these workers.
In a report this year, the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants put the number of these foreign trainees and interns in Japan in 2008 at 200,000, of whom two-thirds were from China. Over the past 11 years, the China Labour Bulletin report explains, tens of thousands of young Chinese, mainly women, have gone to Japan under three-year contracts to take the dirty, dangerous and demanding jobs that Japanese are unwilling to do.
Because of this system, Japan has become the most important foreign market for Chinese labour; in 2009, they earned US$1.59 billion, according to official Chinese data. Behind the dollars are the sweat and tears of individuals. Take the story of a Chinese trainee at a meat-packing plant in Japan, interviewed by China Labour Bulletin. He had to hand over his passport and bank book on arrival and was not allowed to leave the town where he worked. He was forbidden to use the internet or have a mobile phone.
It is shocking to see such deprivation of personal freedoms in one of the world's richest countries, with a high standard of human rights. What is more, the abuses are well known to the Japanese media, labour inspectors and the governments of the towns and cities where the Chinese work. Complicit in the abuses are the employment agencies in China.
Why do Chinese fall into this trap so easily? False promises are made by the agencies to earn at least 200,000 yuan (HK$240,000) after three years - compared to a monthly wage of 1,000 to 2,000 yuan in inland provinces. But what the workers are not told is that they first have to pay an illegal "placement fee" of more than 20,000 yuan. And once they arrive in Japan, they often discover the wage is not the amount promised and below the statutory minimum.
In many ways, these trainees are worse off than in a factory in Shenzhen or Dongguan , where they are protected under the new labour contract law.
Unfortunately, the myth of golden mountains outside China endures. And that provides the opportunity for the middlemen to sell a dream that comes at great sacrifice to those who follow it.
Mark O'Neill worked as a Post correspondent in Beijing and Shanghai from 1997 to 2006 and is now an author, lecturer and journalist based in Hong Kong
Mark O'Neill says an account of the exploitation of Chinese workers in highly regulated Japan shows the vulnerability of these migrants
24 June 2011
For more than a century, Chinese have climbed mountains, crossed stormy seas and stowed away in the hope of working overseas. Their dream is a life beyond the poverty of home. But, they are usually exploited by ruthless middlemen and employers. Despite this, the search for a new life continues today, even with the improvements to the lives of tens of millions in China.
Occasionally, reports of foreign sweatshops employing these migrants give us a glimpse of this Chinese diaspora. But the latest revelation of this hidden world comes from an unexpected source - Japan, a country famous for its efficient control of immigration. The plight of the workers was laid bare in a recently published report titled "Throwaway Labour", by China Labour Bulletin. It documents the long hours, low pay and bad living and working conditions of Chinese in farms, textile plants and other factories. It focuses on Japan, but the same story is repeated in many countries. Most revealing is the fact that this exploitation is arranged with an acceptable name - "trainee". Since Japan severely restricts the import of unskilled labour, it had to create a "trainee system" to legalise these workers.
In a report this year, the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants put the number of these foreign trainees and interns in Japan in 2008 at 200,000, of whom two-thirds were from China. Over the past 11 years, the China Labour Bulletin report explains, tens of thousands of young Chinese, mainly women, have gone to Japan under three-year contracts to take the dirty, dangerous and demanding jobs that Japanese are unwilling to do.
Because of this system, Japan has become the most important foreign market for Chinese labour; in 2009, they earned US$1.59 billion, according to official Chinese data. Behind the dollars are the sweat and tears of individuals. Take the story of a Chinese trainee at a meat-packing plant in Japan, interviewed by China Labour Bulletin. He had to hand over his passport and bank book on arrival and was not allowed to leave the town where he worked. He was forbidden to use the internet or have a mobile phone.
It is shocking to see such deprivation of personal freedoms in one of the world's richest countries, with a high standard of human rights. What is more, the abuses are well known to the Japanese media, labour inspectors and the governments of the towns and cities where the Chinese work. Complicit in the abuses are the employment agencies in China.
Why do Chinese fall into this trap so easily? False promises are made by the agencies to earn at least 200,000 yuan (HK$240,000) after three years - compared to a monthly wage of 1,000 to 2,000 yuan in inland provinces. But what the workers are not told is that they first have to pay an illegal "placement fee" of more than 20,000 yuan. And once they arrive in Japan, they often discover the wage is not the amount promised and below the statutory minimum.
In many ways, these trainees are worse off than in a factory in Shenzhen or Dongguan , where they are protected under the new labour contract law.
Unfortunately, the myth of golden mountains outside China endures. And that provides the opportunity for the middlemen to sell a dream that comes at great sacrifice to those who follow it.
Mark O'Neill worked as a Post correspondent in Beijing and Shanghai from 1997 to 2006 and is now an author, lecturer and journalist based in Hong Kong