Narrative Disorder… in Japan!!

In Japan it is still the case that most workers are "company men." Leaving a company before you retire to simply start working somewhere else is something which is only just becoming more popular but still by no means common. These days, a person gets his status from which company he works for more so than from his family name or even his actual profession (unless he’s a doctor with his own surgery/hospital) and he owes his company his loyalty similarly as a medieval man owed to his liege lord. For example, suiciding over shaming a company by being a manager who oversaw (or overlooked) some major fraud or ethical issue is often in the news and though it is considered tragic and no-one says outright that it is the right thing to do, it also seems not to be frowned upon particularly. And, like liege lords, there are good companies and bad - some will simply work their people into the ground (until they are caught out) and some will treat them well.

The Japanese government watches over the companies and fines and (more importantly) shames them if their worker welfare slips so far as to be headline news but the government also seems to depend upon companies as a kind of social safety net, regulating company behavior to an extent that would have Australian companies up in arms. Companies here pay our equivalent of the medicare levy, for example, and recently it has been proposed (I’m not sure if it has passed yet) that companies be made responsible for the increasing obesity of their workers - for each worker over 45 who is over a certain waist measurement after a certain date, the company will have to pay more of that levy to handle the assumed extra cost in medical care that person may cost the state (though since arriving here I’ve been told that there is no public health system except for keeping prices at the many private hospitals/clinics down by decree - not subsidization, so I’m not sure where said money is actually going… so I am obviously missing a piece of the puzzle here.)  This example may not be as severe as it may seem to many Australians since obesity in Japan is very much a ’salary man’s’ disease caused by too much time in the desk chair and too little time to eat healthily. Grabbing some curry and rice from the station curry stand when heading home on the very last train (if you haven’t missed it) is the best many can do. And this is the thing - the Japanese spend so much of their lives working and so much is expected of them by their companies that it does actually make sense that companies should be held at least partly responsible for their employees welfare beyond what is strictly the work environment. Of course that could equally apply to many Australian companies - particularly when it comes to excessive drinking of their employees at official and unofficial after work gatherings - but then we all know I’m a raging socialist so we can ignore that

But what about the welfare of temp agency staff?

Temp agencies apparently took a while to catch on in Japan because employers weren’t sure they wanted someone who was not indoctrinated in the company ‘way’ to invade the compound, as it were. It has taken off now, though, and people are not happy with the way the temporary workers are being treated - the companies they temp for do not consider them their own but the temp agencies do not offer the kind of protection that permanent staff get at a regular company. Rather than asking the temp agencies to, say, only take on the number of employees they can regularly offer work and so can afford to take care of as other companies take care of their workers (something which was the norm in Australia within my own memory but is now long gone) some have wanted to ban temp agencies altogether and the following appeared in Japan Today, today.

Ruling bloc eyes banning daily-basis dispatch of temp workers

Thursday 03rd July, 04:52 AM JST

TOKYO —

A task force of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner New Komeito Party agreed Wednesday to seek basically banning temp staff agencies from dispatching temp workers on a daily basis, a practice criticized for spawning young working poor and widening Japan’s social disparities, lawmakers said.

As the task force put out its basic stance Wednesday in seeking amendments to the worker dispatch law, the two parties plan to formulate their recommendations on the matter, and based on them the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry is expected to submit a bill to revise the law to the Diet in an extra session convening around late August

Interesting solution. On the surface it looks like those who wanted to ban the agencies altogether have come to a compromise, maybe that’s the case or maybe they are cleverer than their opponents think. It is inevitable that workers will need individual days off at least for the odd flu or funeral. If companies cannot hire temps for the day, what will they do? Two solutions come immediately to mind - the second of which might just see less demand for temp agencies altogether and more permanent (even if part-time) work for people.

The first solution is the one which, frankly, many companies (at least in the West to my knowledge) already resort to instead of hiring temps: foist the work onto some other poor soul or souls who already have enough to do and then blame the poor sick or bereaved worker for not being there . The second solution is for the company to ‘take the high road", if you will, and actually take responsibility for managing this inevitable, unavoidable situation by actually preparing for it. Afterall that’s what today’s leadership is supposed to be all about isn’t it? Human Resource Management? The skeletal staffing arrangements of western companies where they might hire one person to be admin assistant for 5 or 6 mid level executives seems to me a false economy especially when you take into account that over-work and over-stress actually causes the kind of illness which will have people needing days off or working at half-strength if they come in. If you do not order enough copy paper in advance for your requirements then you have managed your needs badly - similarly if you find yourself without enough staff then you have also managed your needs badly, no matter what the reason, because people are wet machines that need rest and become ill if they don’t get enough.

In the ‘olden days’ before employees became "human resources" and, admittedly, before word processors and photocopiers there were ’secretarial pools’ from which people, ok lets face it women, could be transferred for the day or the week that someone was away. If there was notice, as in the case of planned leave, then there could even be a hand-over. Of course it meant that people in the typing pool had to handle the extra work and I wasn’t around then so I’m not sure how that was handled but I’m sure it was handled well in at least some companies.  Obviously there isn’t the amount of work that justifies a typing pool as such these days, but, it seems to me, with the huge cost of temp staff it wouldn’t hurt a company to have one or a few (depending on the size of company) extra ‘floating’ admin staff who are on permanent salary (even if it’s part time) to help out and be available to fill in where necessary. In fact I remember seeing adverts when I was first starting work for ‘admin floaters’ (and giggling stupidly because I was 14.)  Of course, this solution would lead to less demand for temp workers altogether and a decrease in temp agency revenue but it would mean more real jobs and maybe that’s what the anti-temp employment politicians have in mind - but it’s probably just a political compromise. It will be interesting to see what happens.

Annabel Crabb is one of my favourite journalists. I always hope to see her on the Insiders couch each Sunday for her deep political insights and ability to cut through the dross to the heart of the matter at hand in such a way that even Piers Akerman knows the argument is done (not that it stops him muttering one last remark under his breath like a child pouting in the backseat).

She’s also quite a lot of fun. 

In this important article, Annabel asks:
"Why do our police have to sound like they learnt English from a mobile phone instruction pamphlet?"

If you’re cerebrally inclined (and you’re unlikely to be a friend of mine if you’re not - lets face it I’m either excruciatingly boring or completely baffling to anyone who isn’t) click the link and enjoy!

Guilty of grievous oratory harm - Annabel Crabb - Opinion - smh.com.au

I know I was going to be lighter today but once again the priorities of those in the society in which I live show through and I am disgusted and saddened.

During investigations for a report entitled “CHILDREN IN STATE CARE COMMISSION OF INQUIRY: ALLEGATIONS OF SEXUAL ABUSE AND DEATH FROM CRIMINAL CONDUCT” which was delivered last week , Australians…

“when asked to place in order the matters in society that concerned them most, rising petrol prices came first and child sexual abuse came 14th out of 15″

Do please follow this link and read Sen. Bartlett’s post.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that people care so little about helping children who are not their own, given my own history, and yet that shocks me, it truly does.

Several months ago I was stopped outside my local supermarket by two wheel-chair bound teenagers in matching tracksuits with those oversized charity raffle tickets for sale. Having spent a disastrous 3 weeks of my own late teenage-hood failing to sell raffle tickets for the wheelchair sports association I began to reach into my bag for my wallet as I asked them what they were selling them for.

“To get our aussie team to the Special Olympics in Beijing” was the reply.

“Oh!” I heard myself exclaim with an unexpected passion. “No! Noone should be going. Not the able-bodied either. Do you know what’s going on over there, let alone because of the Olympics?”

The boy looked at me dumbfounded, the girl recovered faster and said quickly “Sport has nothing to do with that stuff.”

I didn’t want to pick an argument with them so I refused and apologised again but suggested they do some research into it and shuffled inside before I could be overwhelmed by the shame of my deed. You see, many Australians, I’d even venture to say the vast majority of Australians, would consider that behaviour to have been that most terrible of things: unAustralian - not because I said no to some poor disabled kiddies but because I said no to SPORTSPEOPLE. Worse, I suggested that sportspeople should not pursue their sport with a single-minded obliviousness to the world in which they live.

At the time that I committed my deed the issue hadn’t been discussed in the media since the small flicker of psuedo-concern for a week or so after games had been awarded to China. Now, as the games approach, with the Europeans taking the lead the issue is being bounced around again and the usual “debate” is occurring. Those who believe the games should not be boycotted make statements such as “Sport is above politics” they are nodded at slowly as though they have said something wise and proper, as though they have ACTUALLY OUTLINED ANY KIND OF ARGUMENT AT ALL and the issue is considered dealt with. Those on the other side, who dare to possibly consider that maybe the politics of the situation should perhaps be taken into account, are attacked and even intelligent, usually courageous, political journalists will touch on it only briefly and carefully leave it up to the conscience of the viewer as they do when discussing religion or abortion rights.
“Ok,” I can hear some of you saying, “so what’s your argument FOR a boycott?”

Fair question and it is better answered by Chinese activists who are closer to the situation than I. Sen. Andrew Bartlett, whose blog is a great one to read to keep the faith alive that there are politicians who apply both intelligence and conscience to their work rather than PR, provides this link to the article “THE REAL SITUATION IN PRE-OLYMPICS CHINA” by Teng Biao and Hu Jia (who was arrested and sentenced to 3 and a half yrs jail in China this week for writing such things.) It is a good article for those with sport tunnel vision because it addresses Olympic-specific related abuses - and not just human rights abuses but sportsman’s rights abuses too. For example, the Chinese government is barring their top sportspeople from competing if their political views are suspect, or (as in the case of their national disabled discus champion who received his disabling injury at the Tienanmen Massacre) if their injuries remind people of the truth.

“Sure that’s bad, really awful,” some will continue to argue “but it’s not the individual athlete’s job to make political statements”

First of all this is just a politically correct way of asking: why the hell should an athlete give a damn about another human being? and, frankly if I have to answer that one for you then get the hell away from my blog. No, seriously.

But lets assume that it is arguable that the athlete’s shouldn’t have to care that they will be performing in stadia built by the forcible removal of people from their homes some of whom are in prison or re-education labor camps for objecting. The sheer fact is that there is no way round a political statement in this case. There is a choice which must be made here: to go or not to go, there is no default position, a statement WILL be made one way or the other. If you go you support the Chinese government AND the olympic committee’s choice to award the games to China, if you don’t go then you care about human rights. There is NO ESCAPING a statement. SPORT IS NOT ABOVE HUMANITY. The olympic committee has put every athlete into this position - not China, not political philosophers or activists - by awarding the games to China in the first place.
I am not suggesting that any individual athlete should have to bare the weight of a boycott on their own, I am suggesting that every single athlete should refuse to be used by the olympic organisation and China. Look at that phrase: “every single” or “every one” - it takes each individual for it to happen, each person who says they won’t do it because others won’t do it is guilty of stopping it from happening AND is either a supporter of China and the olympic committee’s choice to award the games to China, or, quite simply, a selfish coward.

“But what do you say to an athlete who doesn’t want to give up the opportunity to achieve what they have spent so much of their life working towards?”

A) It’s bloody horrible and the olympic committee should not have put you in this situation but frankly the olympics doesn’t deserve to be the focus of anyone’s life ambitions if it is this kind of an organisation. If you really care about being the fastest, strongest, highest, get your sports union to organise alternate meets where you can do your best times and prove you’re all about the sport and not the fanfare which feeds the corrupt olympic movement… or are you wanting to jump on that gravy-train yourself?

B) Sit down for two seconds at a computer, google torture and get some damn perspective. It’s not that I don’t support and admire anyone who strives to be the best at anything they do - nor that I am oblivious to the important role that sport plays in western countries inspiring technological and medical breakthroughs or allowing people to channel tribal emotions safely into the love of their team instead of into violence (not always successfully.) But sport is a pastime, an entertainment just like any other pastime and equal to them: despite the Australian worship of sport the truth is that a brilliant runner has no moral superiority over a brilliant chess player and in fact both are morally inferior to a doctor or a charity worker or a human being living under an oppressed regime who has the courage to become an activist. If you are really honestly willing to actively support the pageantry of the Chinese government and the olympic committee which was willing to be bought by them for the sake of a few minutes of your life which, experience tells us you will spend the rest of your days struggling to get over and move on from, then you need a serious adjustment. If you make a stand for humanity, you’ll still be wheeled out every four years to wax nostalgic about your olympic experience but yours will have made more of a difference and lasted longer than it took for your record to be broken - and it won’t just be on sports shows either.

“Why not go and say something on the podium about human rights?”

Because this stand isn’t just about China, it’s about standing up to the olympic committee for giving it to China in the first place. The committee’s protestations that the focus on China would help were disingenuous at best. Sport simply does not matter enough for it to make any positive change for China - OFCOURSE this was going to be negative for Chinese citizens, OFCOURSE it would be taken as/spun as support for the Chinese government. And the olympic committee did not care. We all know how corrupt the olympic committee has been for decades, who knows what China offered them but it was enough even to overlook the very suspect drug-use if not at least child-abuse practices of Chinese sporting associations let alone the wider political abuses. Going to the games and saying “I support human rights” while wearing your medal will be a thoroughly empty, hypocritical PR gesture - because you have allowed the games to occur and the olympic committee remains immune. Make your human rights statement at a press conference the night you make the team and say how you lament the posiiton you’ve been put in by the olympic committee but that you will not be going - that AND empty stadia will make an actual impact - not easily editable too-late-now statements. Don’t allow yourselves to be used by an organisation which has shown itself to care about nothing but that its members may continue to live the lives to which they have become accustomed… where’s the sport in that? And where’s your dignity?

A few weeks ago I added a bunch of podcasts to my RSS feeds on Google Reader and have loved listening to things I would usually miss when they are live (mostly from ABC Radio National and mostly on Sundays lol.) Big Ideas has been broadcasting the odd session from this year’s Adelaide Festival of Ideas. Not satisfied with waiting for their picks (this controlling my own media thing takes hold fast lol) I found the website which generously provides downloadable podcasts of what looks to be the entire schedule! I thought I’d pass the generosity on - you can find them here.