Work Reform

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A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.

Our Philosophies:

All workers must be paid a living wage for their labor.
Income inequality is the main cause of lower living standards.
Workers must join together and fight back for what is rightfully theirs.
We must not be divided and conquered. Workers gain the most when they focus on unifying issues.

Our Goals

Higher wages for underpaid workers.
Better worker representation, including but not limited to unions.
Better and fewer working hours.
Stimulating a massive wave of worker organizing in the United States and beyond.
Organizing and supporting political causes and campaigns that put workers first.

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Bandai Namco reportedly tries to bore staff into quitting, skirting Japan’s labor laws (www.theregister.com)

submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by [email protected] to c/workreform

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Bandai Namco has reportedly turned to the unspoken Japanese tradition of layoff-by-boredom by stuffing unwanted employees into oidashi beya, or "expulsion rooms."

Employees ~~banished~~ reassigned to oidashi beya are left to do nothing, or given menial tasks at best. According to Bloomberg's unnamed insider sources, Bandai Namco has moved around 200 of its 1,300 person team to these rooms in recent months.

The goal of sticking someone in an expulsion room is to literally bore or shame them into quitting, and Bloomberg's sources claim it has worked on around half the people Bandai Namco has stuck in there so far.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yes, of course some companies are using it. That's what the article is about. The point I'm making, and it matters to employees in Japan, is that if employers want to use this strategy and avoid losing lawsuits, they have to be very careful about exactly what they do. Many judges have and continue to side with employees over employers. But filing lawsuits is expensive and time-consuming, and somewhat risky financially because you might lose, so sometimes companies get away with these shady tactics.

And depending on how much money you were making, you might just be better off using a couple of months of that boring time to prepare your resume and apply to other jobs, and then quit once you've lined one up.

Anyway, if your boss does this to you, and you go to your union and that doesn't work, and you eventually hire a lawyer and file a lawsuit against them, the judge is going to ask the company to justify all of the decisions they made. If the company says that they're trying to convince the employee to quit out of boredom, you will win your lawsuit. If the company can provide some kind of plausible explanation for the adjustment in the duties that they're asking you to do, the specific facts are going to come into play, and you might win or lose, depending on them.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I didn't miss your point, mine was just that a global corporation will not commit to doing this without the realistic expectation that it will work out for them. Perhaps Japan has less or no unions, perhaps the legal system does not provide for the employees suing them on the basis of "you made my job deliberately boring". Just that especially a large corp such as this will not do this unless they crunched the numbers and it has been calculated this is the cheapest way towards their objective.