EDITORIAL: Back to drawing board is only way forward on new visa plan

It is increasingly evident that proposed legislation to allow more foreign nationals to work in Japan is not worth serious consideration by lawmakers, given the government's responses to questions about it at the Diet. The bill to revise the immigration control law is the most important piece of legislation to be debated in the current extraordinary Diet session.

The government finally responded to opposition requests for estimates of how may foreign workers will be let in. The Justice Ministry said Nov. 14 that up to 48,000 foreign workers will be allowed to enter the country in fiscal 2019 and 350,000 over five years under the proposed new visa program. A total of 14 job categories will be eligible for the program, according to the government.

But the government offered no specifics for how it arrived at these numbers. Are the estimates based on the government’s own rigorous analysis of well-grounded forecasts of the labor market and wage trends, or are they just the figures sought by industries facing a labor shortage?

The government needs to offer more detailed explanations.

During a Nov. 13 Lower House plenary session, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said that the estimates will serve as “the upper limits” on the numbers of foreign workers Japan will accept under the new system.

At the beginning of this month, however, Justice Minister Takashi Yamashita told a Lower House Budget Committee session that no such upper limits will be set.

Apparently, the government flip-flopped on the issue in just about 10 days.

This fact alone clearly indicates that the bill is not underpinned by a well-defined vision. The manner in which the government is pushing this initiative is way too irresponsible toward both Japanese society and the foreign workers the nation will accept.

The government has also said it expects that foreign nationals currently working in Japan under the so-called Technical Intern Training Program system will account for 50 to 60 percent of those who will work under the new “specified skills” working visa program.

The training program, however, has been criticized by the international community for rampant human rights violations, including illegally long working hours and low wages.

In the first half of this year alone, more than 4,000 foreign trainees fled their workplaces.

Yamashita said at the Lower House plenary session that “a considerable number” of foreign trainees flee their workplaces in pursuit of higher wages. The justice minister sounded as if he were saying that much of the blame should be laid on the trainees.

What does he think about the fact that the government’s investigations into the working conditions of foreign trainees found violations of the law and regulations like illegal overtime at as many as 70 percent of the workplaces?

Abe, for his part, has failed to correct Yamashita’s view about the issue and refused to offer a serious response to the opposition parties’ argument that the government should start with efforts to grasp the realities of foreign workers in Japan.

Instead, he has even promised to “consider” the proposal to allow foreign workers with the “specified skills” visa status to work on a temporary basis.

Companies that hire foreign workers will be obliged to draw up appropriate work contracts and provide sufficient support to them, the government says. It has pledged to protect the rights of foreign workers through direct oversight of the companies.

But allowing companies to hire foreign workers as temporary staff members would make it difficult for the employers to monitor the working conditions.

Abe’s remark apparently reflects his administration’s hidden desire to use foreign workers as a convenient buffer against changes in the labor market.

It is also unclear how the government intends to tackle issues inseparable from the new program, such as Japanese language training and social security coverage for foreign workers.

The only reasonable action the government can take with regard to this initiative is to give up its plan to get the bill passed during the current Diet session and bring the proposal back to the drawing board.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Nov. 15

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