Reuters: Subaru Success Fueled By Marginalized Foreign Workers

Mark Stevenson
by Mark Stevenson

Reuters Investigates has a scathing report on foreign workers in Japan at some of Subaru’s most important suppliers. According to the news agency, due to the combination of a booming “Abenomics”, Japan’s 2010 asylum seeker program, and manufacturers looking for cheap sources of expendable labor, foreigners are taken advantage of and treated as second- and third-class workers. Another program meant to help Chinese citizens learn manufacturing skills in Japan is also implicated in helping Subaru take advantage of marginalized immigrant workers.

Subaru isn’t the only automotive manufacturer named as the same suppliers also feed parts to Honda and Toyota.

The long, detailed report states there are nearly 18,000 foreign residents in Ota, Subaru’s manufacturing home base in Japan, “making it a rare example of multiculturalism in a country stubbornly resistant to immigration” at three times the national average by percentage of population.

However, that immigration isn’t officially of the economic variety as is typically seen between industrialized nations, but of asylum seekers looking for a better life and finding their way into Japan through labor brokers and as indebted trainees. The situation has also been an example of institutionalized racism within Japan.

From Reuters:

In Ota’s auto industry, labor brokers and a manager at a Subaru supplier said ethnicity plays a part in how workers are placed: Japanese workers are at the top of the chain, followed by Brazilians of Japanese descent, who have been in the country longer under a special visa category and can speak the language. They’re followed by South Asians, many of them asylum seekers, and lastly, African workers at the bottom of the pyramid. An executive at one local manufacturer said he favored asylum seekers from Nepal, Sri Lanka, India and Bangladesh, who he said are more willing to take on difficult jobs for lower pay.

“We carefully examined the matter and confirmed that this was not the case,” Subaru said in a written response to questions from Reuters.

The conditions for asylum-seekers-turned-workers in Ota are fueled by Subaru’s popular Forester, Reuters states in the report, running counter to the company’s “Love Promise” to make “a positive impact in the world.” Some workers make as little as minimum wage — $6.60 an hour — before labor brokers take their own cut off the top for housing, utilities and “dispatch fees” for arranging employment.

Many of the employees, typically on short-term contracts, are working illegally while on provisional release from immigration detention centers.

From Reuters:

Asked how people on provisional release were supposed to survive if they were barred from working, Hidetoshi Ogawa, a senior official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said they should rely on support from their relatives, friends and local charities. He said provisional release was a humanitarian measure to avoid long-term detention, “but in truth, these people should leave the country.”

The terms of employment, conditions of work, and treatment of the workers is fully detailed in the report and not what you’d expect from a supposed First World country like Japan.

Mark Stevenson
Mark Stevenson

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  • TW5 TW5 on Jul 30, 2015

    Three arts majors try to write a relevant business article, fail miserably. The article is comical. Quotes about car manufacturing come from the mayor of Ota. Japan's foreign worker training program is criticized by the US and UN, but the article doesn't say why. They mention that one of the laborers who works as a painter must wear a mask to protect himself from the horrible fumes (okay?). The immigrant workers are paid a min wage as low as $6.60/hr, ($.65 less than US min wage). They set out to write a hit piece on Japanese manufacturing, they found nothing, other than a few anecdotal stories of mediocre healthcare and Japanese racism (not specific to Subaru or immigrant worker arrangements). So they tried to pin what little they did find on the Japanese manufacturer most likely to grab headlines in the US. I'm ashamed for the authors and Reuters. I hope they enjoyed frolicking in Japan with pre-tax dollars.

    • See 2 previous
    • Stuki Stuki on Jul 30, 2015

      @ccode81 "Never miss it besides of their help desk .." Poor Amit doesn't understand.......

  • See 7 up See 7 up on Jul 30, 2015

    Hey, at least use the money saved to certify a manual equipped forester XT for US sales. I'll trade in my 2.5i 6mt pronto. Or better yet - mazda. Put the 6mt in the awd cx-5.

  • Joe This is called a man in the middle attack and has been around for years. You can fall for this in a Starbucks as easily as when you’re charging your car. Nothing new here…
  • AZFelix Hilux technical, preferably with a swivel mount.
  • ToolGuy This is the kind of thing you get when you give people faster internet.
  • ToolGuy North America is already the greatest country on the planet, and I have learned to be careful about what I wish for in terms of making changes. I mean, if Greenland wants to buy JDM vehicles, isn't that for the Danes to decide?
  • ToolGuy Once again my home did not catch on fire and my fire extinguisher(s) stayed in the closet, unused. I guess I threw my money away on fire extinguishers.(And by fire extinguishers I mean nuclear missiles.)
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