Filipina sues Japan company for refusing to return her passport after she quit

TOKYO - A Filipina stranded in Japan is suing her former Yokohama employer for her passport to be returned to her, in a case that again casts a spotlight on the less-than-ideal conditions that foreigners working in low-status jobs face.

The 30-year-old had thought her passport was required by her then employer, Advanceconsul Certified Administrative Procedures Legal Specialists' Office, only to apply for a work visa.

But her lawyer, Mr Shoichi Ibusuki, said that the company continues to "hold hostage" her travel document even after she quit.

"We very often see that business operators in Japan, when hiring foreign workers, keep their passports or graduation certificates," he said.

"This is done to prevent foreign employees from making demands on the company or to protest against bad conduct by the employer. It is also to prevent workers from quitting and seeking another job," he added.

The civil lawsuit was filed in the Yokohama District Court last month against a company that was just in September last year warned by Kanagawa prefecture for "unjust labour practices" in another case.

The woman is also suing the company for damages of 1.08 million yen (S$13,613) in lost salary, given that it has been impossible for her to find work since August last year as she cannot secure a new job without her passport, according to court documents seen by The Straits Times.

This case comes amid a surge in the number of foreign workers moving to Japan, which hit a record 1.66 million as of October last year amid a steep labour crunch.

This is up 13.6 per cent from 2018, with China, Vietnam and the Philippines the top three sources of foreign workers.

One reason for this jump is an increase in "technical interns" under a programme that has been criticised for being a hotbed of human rights abuses, including excessive overtime, unpaid wages and workplace harassment.

There were 189,000 new technical interns last year.

The harsh scrutiny over the programme led the government to tighten laws in 2017, including a ban on employers holding on to passports.

But this is not uniformly applied to foreign workers under other work visas.

Japan also launched a new "specified skills" visa for blue-collared workers in April last year under a five-year programme to fill a gaping demand in 14 sectors, including the nursing and hotel industries.

It expects 345,000 workers in total by March 2024 across the 14 industries.

But while it hoped to issue visas to 47,000 people in the first year, fewer than 2,000 have applied and received permission to work in Japan so far, raising questions over the attractiveness of Japan amid stiff competition with other countries for foreign workers.

"It's not a failure," insisted a senior Cabinet Secretariat official on condition of anonymity.

"This is a process, and we are only at the start of the programme."

Meanwhile, Japan is also trying to break down barriers of entry to woo highly-skilled foreign professionals in white-collared jobs, although the high-profile case involving former Nissan chief Carlos Ghosn will have given some pause.

Ghosn, 65, who faces four charges of financial misconduct in Japan, has jumped bail and fled the country, alleging hostage justice and biased treatment by the authorities because he is a foreigner.

All this belies a pressing need for more hands and feet, especially in blue-collared industries.

There are now 157 job openings for every 100 people, while the unemployment rate stands at 2.2 per cent.

Still, labour lawyers and rights groups like Posse, which is helping the Filipina, are calling on Japan to impose more stringent laws to protect foreign workers from exploitation.

They note that a series of cases involving foreigners would have sullied its reputation as an ideal country to work in.

Mr Makoto Iwahashi, of Posse, noted that the odds have long been stacked against those in low-status jobs in Japan - both foreigners and locals - by so-called "black companies" that want to milk cheap labour who are in vulnerable positions.

"But unlike Japanese workers, foreigners have more hurdles to overcome to voice their concerns," he said, adding that besides the language barrier, foreign workers may receive sometimes-exploitative contracts and have no ready means of support.

The Filipina, who holds a tourism management degree, arrived in Japan in April 2017 to study at a Japanese language school.

She was offered a clerical and translation job at Advanceconsul, beginning work on May 8, 2019.

She was asked to surrender her passport, college transcript and certificate to process her visa paperwork. She was also made to sign a contract in Japanese legalese, which she said she does not understand.

The company did not explain the document in English or her native Tagalog.

The form states that her employer will hold sole discretion over the management of her passport, including how long it is to be kept for.

It also states that the passport will "continue to be held by the employer in the event of resignation".

The woman quit on July 19, 2019, after finding that she had been paid just 100,000 yen for her first month of work.

This is not only about half of what she was promised in her contract, but also less than what she would have got if paid the hourly minimum wage, which is 1,011 yen per hour in Kanagawa, where Yokohama is the prefectural capital.

"I just don't know what to do. I'm afraid what will happen to me if I don't have (my) documents. My passport is my personal identity.

"How can I find a new job or even go back to my country?" she said in a video on a crowdfunding page to support her case.

Mr Ibusuki, the lawyer, said that the ability of embassies or consulates to help citizens caught in such situations is limited.

"Since embassies do not have any legal powers to actually force companies to return the passport of their workers, the companies can decide to just ignore such requests," he said.

Mr Iwahashi added that passports are often only reissued if lost or stolen, which requires a police report to be lodged.

"In this case, it was neither lost nor stolen. And even if victims go to the police it is another big hurdle because they will have to then explain the whole situation - in Japanese."