Black company

A black company (ブラック企業, burakku kigyō), also referred to in English as a black corporation or black business, is a Japanese term for an exploitative, sweatshop-type employment system.

This article is about the Japanese term. For the 16th-century mercenary unit, see Black Company. For the fantasy series, see The Black Company. For businesses owned by African-Americans, see Black-owned businesses.

While the term "sweatshop" is associated with manufacturing, and the garment trade in particular, in Japan black companies are not necessarily associated with the clothing industry, but more often with office work.

Etymology

The term "black company" was coined in the early 2000s by young IT workers but has since come to be applied to various industries.[1]

Conditions

While specifics may vary from workplace to workplace and company to company, a typical practice at a black company is to hire a large number of young employees and then force them to work large amounts of overtime without overtime pay. Conditions are poor, and workers are subjected to verbal abuse and "power harassment" (bullying) by their superiors.[1] In order to make the employees stay, superiors of black companies would often threaten young employees with disrepute if they chose to quit.

Noteworthy cases

Mina Mori, a 26-year-old employee of the restaurant chain Watami, committed suicide[2] two months after joining the company in 2008. Her family lodged a complaint with the Yokosuka Labor Standards Office to seek recognition of the suicide as work-related. When their claim was denied, they appealed it to the Kanagawa Prefectural Labor Bureau, which recognized work-related stress as the cause of the decline of her mental health.[3][4] In December 2015, Watami reached an out-of-court settlement of 130 million yen with the family, and Watami founder Miki Watanabe apologized.[5]

See also

References
  1. Japan Times Unpaid overtime excesses hit young June 25, 2013 Archived July 2, 2013, at the Wayback Machine
  2. Vice Japan's Suicidal Salarymen are dying for work Archived 2016-09-26 at the Wayback Machine
  3. Japan Press Weekly Izakaya restaurant chain worker’s suicide recognized as work-related February 22-28, 2012 Archived 2015-04-03 at the Wayback Machine
  4. Japan Times Watami under scrutiny after karōshi June 17, 2012 Archived May 23, 2014, at the Wayback Machine
  5. Pub chain Watami, founder settle suit over suicide of overworked staffer December 9, 2015 Japan Times Archived December 11, 2015 at the Wayback Machine
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