Nipponica

According to the complaint, in 2023, when the man was still a student, he visited hospitals in Kobe and Chiba Prefecture to look for a job, but his teacher and others pointed out that he was not allowed to do that during his on-the-job training period. He was told, "We have to punish you somehow" and "Will you waste a year?" suggesting that he would have to repeat the year. He was then demanded to apologize in front of all his classmates and submit a letter of reflection.

Preventing students from job hunting seems completely backwards.

Another Hyogo prefectural government employee linked to power harassment allegations against Gov. Motohiko Saito was found to have died, in an apparent suicide, sources have said.

The employee, a former section chief, who was in charge of gathering funds for last year's victory parades for the Hanshin Tigers and the Orix Buffaloes, both professional baseball teams, and was recuperating from sickness, died in April, Saito said at a news conference Wednesday.

This guy needs to go. Now.

The vice governor of the western Japan prefecture of Hyogo said Friday that he will resign over the death of a prefectural government official who created and distributed a document about alleged harassment and other problems with Governor Motohiko Saito.

Vice Governor Yasutaka Katayama submitted a letter of resignation on Friday and will leave office at the end of this month. Since assuming his current post in 2021, Katayama has been supporting the 46-year-old governor.

Following on from the initial story, the Vice Governor is taking the fall for the alleged harassment that led to the death of a prefectural employee. Governor Saito refused to resign.

Saito's refusal came after the prefectural employee union submitted a complaint to the prefectural government earlier on Wednesday effectively demanding his resignation over the death of the official.

The late official, a former head of a regional branch of the prefectural government, created a document claiming that gifts from Hyogo Prefecture companies are piled up at the governor's home and that his power harassment is exceeding what officials can handle.

Pretty damning accusations by the union and the official that passed away.

In 2022, the ministry conducted a special inspection of more than 200,000 Self-Defense Forces personnel about “power harassment” after a female former SDF member made accusations of sexual abuse under her real name.

Last December, the ministry announced it would punish 245 employees, mainly SDF staff called “uniformed officials.”

Action should be taken against any harassment but I am hesitant to think that this will make any kind of real difference in actual future change towards more equitable workplaces.

On March 26 at around 2:30 p.m, the two suspects reportedly told their coworker, a 50-year-old man with an intellectual disability, "You stink! Get in the washing machine."

They allegedly proceeded to force him into the machine and turn it on, resulting in injuries that required two weeks to heal.

Besides the usual comments about harassment in Japanese working culture, I must also make note that this is also harassment of those with intellectual impairments. We all just need to love each other regardless of our differences and get along. This story is so sad.