Column Archives | SNA Japan

June 2020
M	T	W	T	F	S	S
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28
29	30

Bread & Roses: University Students in the Age of Corona

The work shutdown in the wake of the April 7, 2020, emergency declaration hit one group particularly hard: students working part-time gigs.

Visible Minorities: The Guestists and the Collaborators

We shouldn’t wait for the government to deign to divvy out what it thinks foreigners want, as if it’s the omotenashi (hospitality) Japan offers any guest. Instead, NJ residents should be telling the government what they want, on their terms.

Bread & Roses: Workers of the World! Unite and Stay Home!

Today, we see the eight-hour workday as a social norm, albeit observed more in the breech. But workers shed blood and tears to bequeath this right to us.

Visible Minorities: Pandemic Releases Antibodies Toward Non-Japanese

Treating outsiders like contagion has consequences: Society develops antibodies, and Japan’s already-normalized discrimination intensifies.

Bread & Roses: Worker Rights in the Age of Coronavirus

Around Japan, workers still commute each day on packed trains and file into crowded meeting rooms. Some are told to stay home, with or without pay.

Visible Minorities: No Free Pass for Shirking Responsibility

There’s an oft-used expression in Japanese: sekinin tenka. Best translated as “passing the buck,” it’s a reflex of dodging blame for one’s own actions by transferring responsibility to others. For too long, Japan has done so on the world stage with impunity—even when it affects the world adversely.

Bread & Roses: Labor Law Takes Backwards Step in the Abe Era

Japan’s labor laws have made several several distinct steps forward since the Meiji Restoration of 1868, with workers gradually gaining a degree of protection from the exploitation of business owners and managers. However, the era of Shinzo Abe has been characterized not only by a failure to progress further, but by a distinct step backwards.