How Japanese black companies oppress workers (2014) • Hacker News Board

Re: How Japanese black companies oppress workers (2014)

#231

Post by akimbostrawman » Tue, Nov 19, 2024, 9:29 AM UTC

2112syrinx wrote: post #223

mekoka wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose that's also why Japanese martial artists work their way toward a black belt.

I don't think this is related to what I mentioned. I'm truly surprised that this subject is not relevant to you or, treated like if I was joking. I am just saying the term has indeed the connotation of "what is black is wrong". I failed in providing an article to corroborate with my position. I will try to find something.

Black used in a bad context = THATS RACIST

Black used in a good context = THATS UNRELATED

you would think at some point cognitive dissonance would kick in but virtue signaling and victim complex high is just too addictive and rewarding

Re: How Japanese black companies oppress workers (2014)

#232

Post by devnullbrain » Tue, Nov 19, 2024, 3:41 PM UTC

waihtis wrote: post #220

devnullbrain wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're going to be this pedantic, I'll point out that specifying it was a shooting is both more accurate and, given the gun laws, more significant politically.

This may be the most absurd thing ive read on HN. To be clear, are you really suggesting someone breaking gun laws was more significant than the murder of the head of state?

You are not replying in good faith. Have a nice day.

Re: How Japanese black companies oppress workers (2014)

#233

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Nov 19, 2024, 3:54 PM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #161

johnisgood wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends, in Eastern Europe "suing" does not happen often, in fact, it is quite rare, for both employers and employees. I see how people in the US are threatening to sue all the time, but that is not the case around here. It would take too much time and money and usually is not worth it.

I don’t know statistics but here in Germany many people have insurance that pays for attorneys in case of conflicts related to employment and would make use of it.

[deleted]

Re: How Japanese black companies oppress workers (2014)

#234

Post by alsetmusic » Wed, Nov 20, 2024, 1:36 AM UTC

thirdacc wrote: post #158

jandrewrogers wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of my dearest friends are on the lower end of working class and don’t make a lot of money. They worry about many things but finding another job is not among them. We talk about it. I am financially well off now but I’ve also lived decades of abject poverty, I am not unfamiliar with what that entails. At every point in time, finding a job wasn’t an issue. It might have not been a great job, but it was a job that…

It can be a totally different experience if you have a chronic illness that affects your schedule, or if you don't have a car. In my case it's been both. Currently, lack of reliable transportation and a driver's license is the main issue. I've been struggling to even get an interview in junior software dev for over a year now. Tried some help desk as well and never heard back. I've had my resume looked at quite a few…

> if you don't have a car.

I had a long gap between employers where I lived off of saved money and explored new tech with a hope that I'd be able to improve my standing in the market. It made it nearly impossible to get anyone interested in my application because the gap was years.

Once I'd finally changed that by working a temp gig (having now achieved recent employment), I started getting calls. The job I took required visiting clients on-site from time to time. They didn't think to ask me if I had a car or license. When they found out (as I took a company-paid Uber 25m in my second month), I sensed that they realized they'd left a huge gap in their interview process. I was reassigned to only visit clients that I could get to via a combination of train and ride-share or short ride-share.

Had they asked about long-distance on-sites and my ability to get there myself, I'm confident I wouldn't have been hired.

Re: How Japanese black companies oppress workers (2014)

#235

Post by kelnos » Wed, Nov 20, 2024, 6:24 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #75

jayd16 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inexplicably linking employment with healthcare seems unrelated to at-will employment.

The reason is explicable - health insurance paid by the employer is tax-deductible, while insurance paid by the employee is not. Therefore, employers include it as a way to increase total compensation at a lower cost. The origin of the practice was in WW2, when Roosevelt froze wages. To attract more and better employees, the companies threw in health insurance as a way around the restrictions.

Sure, but the inexplicable bit is that there's no actual reason it has to be that way.

There's no reason why a law cannot be passed amending the tax code to make health insurance premiums paid by an individual tax deductible.

I'm not saying it would be easy to get such a law passed, but that doesn't change the fact that it's stupid to have health insurance tied to your employer.

(At any rate, health insurance premiums are tax deductible, but the rules are annoying and require that your healthcare spending be a certain percentage of your income.)

Re: How Japanese black companies oppress workers (2014)

#236

Post by roobs » Wed, Nov 20, 2024, 7:01 AM UTC

jalapenos wrote: post #175

roobs wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Japan and while also not a lawyer I've had experiences with the labor bureau - this is totally false, and even explicitly stated in the Labor Standards Act: "Article 5: An employer must not force a worker to work against their will through the use of physical violence, intimidation, confinement, or any other means that unjustly restricts that worker's mental or physical freedom. ... Article 16: An employer…

I think this is only a prohibition on liquidated damages clauses though (plus making the act of even writing a penalty clause, which are already unenforceable, unlawful). It doesn't appear to be an exclusion of actual damages due to e.g. a one year contract worker quitting after 6 months, if it actually caused their employer damages.

I can't show you a specific legislation that says "you cannot hold workers liable for your losses", but the proposition seems a bit absurd to me because that just seems like unlimited liability on the worker; could you sue a worker who has to take extended sick leave because they become disabled or otherwise unable to work?

Again to be clear I'm talking about contract employees 契約社員 who fall under the scope of the Labor Standards act - freelancers who agree to pay a penalty if they breach contract I'm not sure on how enforceable that would be.

Re: How Japanese black companies oppress workers (2014)

#237

Post by jesterson » Wed, Nov 20, 2024, 7:43 AM UTC

throwaway562if1 wrote: post #144

goykasi wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same could be said about going home at 6pm (except for the sleeping). Take the Oedo line out of Shinjuku or Roppongi between 6 and 8pm and tell me everyone is still at work.

"Not everyone works at black companies" and "nobody works at black companies" are very different statements. People going home at 6 is evidence for the former, not the latter.

it's amazing how some people fail at basic logic trying to justify own biases, innit?

Re: How Japanese black companies oppress workers (2014)

#238

Post by krageon » Thu, Nov 21, 2024, 3:17 PM UTC

2112syrinx wrote: post #194

The term "black", etimologicaly speaking, is racist and should not be used. Japanese culture seems also to be racist, so not a surprise. Instead of "black companies", kindly use "evil companies" instead.

This would read significantly less like empty trolling or virtue signalling if you added why you think it is culturally the case that the "black" in "black companies" is somehow related to skin colour (and not, say, the inherent danger of an unlit environment - such as at night).

This would have a nice side-effect of you almost certainly realising you are wrong - as the connotation as far as I'm aware doesn't have racist overtones. In this way you'd be doing yourself a service because you'd need to be angry over less things and you'd be doing everyone else a service because they wouldn't read something so clearly born from a US-centric world view. A case could be made that having one of those and not bothering to learn about other cultures is itself fairly xenophobic.