パワハラ防止法
June 23, 2020 9:19 PM Subscribe
Japan: Law to Prevent “Powa-Hara” (Power Harassment) Takes Effect
The amended act obligates employers to take measures to prevent power harassment, such as establishing a proper system for providing consultations for employees regarding power harassment followed by responses to their concerns. (Art. 30-2, para. 1.) The amended act also prohibits employers from punishing employees for filing power harassment complaints. (Art. 30-2, para. 2.)
- Defining what constitutes power harassment (The Japan Times, 2019 Nov. 7)
The law makes it mandatory for employers to take measures to prevent power harassment against their workers, such as developing systems for their consultation. However, it fails to provide for punishment for people who engage in acts of power harassment.
- Power harassment (Wikipedia)
Power harassment is harassment or unwelcome attention of a political nature, often occurring in the environment of a workplace including hospitals, schools and universities. It includes a range of behavior from mild irritation and annoyances to serious abuses which can even involve forced activity beyond the boundaries of the job description . . . . Although the phenomenon of power harassment is not uniquely Japanese, since it has occurred in many environments outside Japan, the term is a Japanese coinage. It has received significant attention in Japan in recent years as a workplace problem.
- Power Harassment: The Tort of Workplace Bullying in Japan (PDF) (Philip Hsiao, 2015)
As law outside America has changed to protect workers against bullying and general harassment rather than just bias-based harassment, a unique way of addressing this issue is currently developing in Japan. Specifically, Japanese law has begun to acknowledge a workplace tort theory called power harassment (pawā harasumento or pawahara), which protects employees from abuses by those who have (or at least have access to) greater organizational or social power.
today i learned that workplace culture in japan is a lot like academic workplace culture in the united states.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 11:58 PM on June 23, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 11:58 PM on June 23, 2020 [6 favorites]
Is that Wikipedia article really one of the best sources you could find on this issue? Here's the bulk of their section on Japan:
For many Japanese, the only kind of management style they have ever experienced is one in which subordinates are treated harshly and no complaints are tolerated. This makes the nightmare boss seem normal, and those who have never had a different role model for management style find themselves falling back on the old methods. And indeed, many Japanese admire authoritarian bosses, finding them to be strong and admiring their "passion" that may be expressed in angry outbursts.
The only citation for this is a couple of very short articles on a website for a foreign consulting company called Japan Intercultural Consulting, which appears to be run by the university professor who wrote the articles.
While workplace harassment and bullying may well be problems, this declaration that "many Japanese admire" bullying bosses comes across as an extremely distorted, and borderline racist, view.
If there were ever a case for Wikipedia's "Citation Needed" tag, this would be it.
posted by Umami Dearest at 12:52 AM on June 24, 2020 [10 favorites]
For many Japanese, the only kind of management style they have ever experienced is one in which subordinates are treated harshly and no complaints are tolerated. This makes the nightmare boss seem normal, and those who have never had a different role model for management style find themselves falling back on the old methods. And indeed, many Japanese admire authoritarian bosses, finding them to be strong and admiring their "passion" that may be expressed in angry outbursts.
The only citation for this is a couple of very short articles on a website for a foreign consulting company called Japan Intercultural Consulting, which appears to be run by the university professor who wrote the articles.
While workplace harassment and bullying may well be problems, this declaration that "many Japanese admire" bullying bosses comes across as an extremely distorted, and borderline racist, view.
If there were ever a case for Wikipedia's "Citation Needed" tag, this would be it.
posted by Umami Dearest at 12:52 AM on June 24, 2020 [10 favorites]
pawahara
I just love the way Japanese takes English words and turns them into Japanese, it is very cool. Even better when they come full circle back into English - let's see some action against pawahara in USA, Canada, UK...
posted by Meatbomb at 1:59 AM on June 24, 2020 [3 favorites]
I just love the way Japanese takes English words and turns them into Japanese, it is very cool. Even better when they come full circle back into English - let's see some action against pawahara in USA, Canada, UK...
posted by Meatbomb at 1:59 AM on June 24, 2020 [3 favorites]
I'm pleased that it's describing bad behaviors rather than targets.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 5:59 AM on June 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 5:59 AM on June 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
this declaration that "many Japanese admire" bullying bosses comes across as an extremely distorted, and borderline racist, view.
You're right. I did not read closely enough.
posted by Not A Thing at 6:49 AM on June 24, 2020 [2 favorites]
You're right. I did not read closely enough.
posted by Not A Thing at 6:49 AM on June 24, 2020 [2 favorites]
I just love the way Japanese takes English words and turns them into Japanese, it is very cool.
I always wonder if there's some deeper level meaning behind using katakana/loan word terms for things like this (other examples being sekuhara, ED or DV). Like why aren't people using the already existing Japanese words? I'm pretty sure it's a confirmation bias thing and there are a proportional amount of "good" katakana terms being adopted but it still gives me a bit of pause whenever I hear one of the "bad" ones.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:13 PM on June 24, 2020
I always wonder if there's some deeper level meaning behind using katakana/loan word terms for things like this (other examples being sekuhara, ED or DV). Like why aren't people using the already existing Japanese words? I'm pretty sure it's a confirmation bias thing and there are a proportional amount of "good" katakana terms being adopted but it still gives me a bit of pause whenever I hear one of the "bad" ones.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:13 PM on June 24, 2020
English uses a lot of Latin words and phrases in legal and medical settings. The katakana version could have an explicit legal definition whereas the Japanese has all of the connotations or double-meanings that all languages deal with.
posted by TheJoven at 12:51 PM on June 24, 2020
posted by TheJoven at 12:51 PM on June 24, 2020
There's depressing neologisms in Japanese too, like 便所飯, the practice of eating your lunch alone hiding in the toilet.
posted by entity447b at 12:52 PM on June 24, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by entity447b at 12:52 PM on June 24, 2020 [2 favorites]
Power hierarchies we have to live in for our economic survival are essentially perfect sites for abuse. I've been starting to read Prof. Wolfe's work on worker-owned co-ops as an alternative.
posted by Grimp0teuthis at 3:54 PM on June 24, 2020
posted by Grimp0teuthis at 3:54 PM on June 24, 2020
So basically, companies have to protect employees from workplace bullying -- or am I reading this wrong?
I guess I've always thought of bullying as a childhood thing that happens in schools -- that's where it happened to me, anyway -- but that's obviously not the case.
I'd be interested in hearing what people personally affected by the new law think about it -- is it sufficient, even without legal sanctions?
posted by invincible summer at 4:07 PM on June 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
I guess I've always thought of bullying as a childhood thing that happens in schools -- that's where it happened to me, anyway -- but that's obviously not the case.
I'd be interested in hearing what people personally affected by the new law think about it -- is it sufficient, even without legal sanctions?
posted by invincible summer at 4:07 PM on June 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
This is toothless.
I have lived and worked in Japan for years and had conversations with numerous (and I mean numerous, like probably more than 100) people working for terrible companies, and I can extrapolate from their reports and experiences.
Bear in mind, this isn't the behavior of ALL Japanese companies, only the specific type (atmosphere) of company that this purports to address.
From the first link, there's a section that says, "The Guidelines obligate employers to take the following measures:"
Explain what constitutes power harassment, establish a policy forbidding it, and include provisions in the work rules to prevent it.
Make it clear that they will take strict action against employees who breach these provisions by specifically labeling such breaches as a cause for disciplinary action.
In the kind of companies that have this problem, this is at best a few lines in a revised company employee handbook, nothing more. It'll have a definition of power harassment copied and pasted off the labor bureau website. Orientation will skip right over it and the language will clearly not be the company's, and new employees will mostly understand that it's boilerplate.
Set up a consultation service for employees who are distressed because of power harassment.
Ensure the consultation service functions properly by, for example, providing training for personnel in charge of consultation services.
Hey Taro, guess what, you're the new pawahara tanto (responsible person.) Here, read this handbook or sit here while I read off this powerpoint presentation I made a freshman create for me at 10 PM last night.
There will be no test, no confirmation of understanding, and the training will not necessarily be created or administered by anyone qualified to begin with. Most likely, Taro will be asked to include any "consultations" in his daily report, and even if anyone thinks to make it anonymous, context will make things pretty clear. Everyone around Taro will know that he is essentially powerless, or worse, a snitch, and he will seldom or never have to perform this duty. His handbook will collect dust.
Promptly investigate facts pertaining to alleged power harassment and, if the occurrence of harassment is confirmed, promptly take measures to provide care for victimized employees, such as by relocating them, and to reprimand the perpetrator in accordance with the employment rules.
Make employees thoroughly informed of the necessity of confidentiality and the prohibition of disadvantageous treatment. (Guidelines at 11–19.)
Aside from that last thing (which is also just a markup to the handbook) this actually has LAYERS of uselessness.
Firstly, any investigation actually happening or turning anything up depends completely on workplace culture, and in a company where this kind of thing is an issue, generally an "investigation" barely happens at all. Almost more insidious are the grayer companies, where an investigation happens, and a perpetrator is then called into an office and rebuked, apologizes, and the whole incident is then forgotten and the pattern repeats without any real change.
And then we have this creepy bit of relocating them. This is not care, this is a threat. Relocation in a Japanese company happens, it happens to everyone, but because it's so common (of course in some industries more than others) it can be used as a social cudgel without it being obvious that that's what's happening.
Moving sucks and often it means splitting up families. Relocation is a quiet punishment that looks like a regular bit of administrative bad luck, because often it's not a punishment for doing anything actually wrong, just for not fitting in very well or for annoying someone with a little power. "If you report harassment, you will be relocated" sounds more chilling than reassuring, the fact that relocation for a victimized employee (and not the harasser) is suggested here really startled me.
But here is what it's really about:
Alleged victims who are not satisfied with the employer’s solution can request mediation through the prefecture labor bureau. (Labor Policy Comprehensive Promotion Act art. 30-6.)
This is what people are already doing. This is the ONLY thing that actually helps and is creating the gradual improvements that are happening. On the one hand, the guidelines might remind people that what they're experiencing is wrong and send them to the labor bureau, which is good, but on the other, a company could feasibly use a kind of malicious compliance to put more barriers between an employee and going to the labor bureau, which would be bad. I'm not sure which of these is more likely to happen. I think the labor bureau is counting on/hoping for the first one, because they generally don't mess around when it comes to complaints.
In the past, this kind of harassment discussion was mainly focused on shouting, direct insults, occasionally physical violence, and other things that look obviously like bullying, but as those have become more taboo and harder to get away with, power harassment hasn't gone away, it's just changed its shape.
There is tremendous emphasis on things unsaid, and in many companies, your ability to pick up on incredibly subtle social cues is absolutely critical, not just to having friends at work, but to having a job or any chance of success. And this isn't an exclusive Japan thing at all, but it is a thing that matters here. Remember that time people were speculating that Queen Elizabeth insulted Donald Trump by wearing a specific brooch? It's THAT kind of communication sometimes.
Inside the system, when everyone's conscious of it, receiving these kinds of coded "you're on thin ice" messages in excess all the time (as bad bosses will do) can be so miserably anxiety-inducing that it causes trauma and, in really dire cases, even suicidal ideation/behavior. And yet, from the outside, most of the actual incidents have incredible plausible deniability, just like Queen Elizabeth could say "oh, I just like that brooch and thought it went well with the suit."
So I'm kind of sympathetic to the impossibility of writing good legislation on this, but also pessimistic about it actually creating change in any but the most blatant cases (which will then be used to demonstrate that it's working.)
posted by gloriouslyincandescent at 7:27 PM on June 24, 2020 [7 favorites]
I have lived and worked in Japan for years and had conversations with numerous (and I mean numerous, like probably more than 100) people working for terrible companies, and I can extrapolate from their reports and experiences.
Bear in mind, this isn't the behavior of ALL Japanese companies, only the specific type (atmosphere) of company that this purports to address.
From the first link, there's a section that says, "The Guidelines obligate employers to take the following measures:"
Explain what constitutes power harassment, establish a policy forbidding it, and include provisions in the work rules to prevent it.
Make it clear that they will take strict action against employees who breach these provisions by specifically labeling such breaches as a cause for disciplinary action.
In the kind of companies that have this problem, this is at best a few lines in a revised company employee handbook, nothing more. It'll have a definition of power harassment copied and pasted off the labor bureau website. Orientation will skip right over it and the language will clearly not be the company's, and new employees will mostly understand that it's boilerplate.
Set up a consultation service for employees who are distressed because of power harassment.
Ensure the consultation service functions properly by, for example, providing training for personnel in charge of consultation services.
Hey Taro, guess what, you're the new pawahara tanto (responsible person.) Here, read this handbook or sit here while I read off this powerpoint presentation I made a freshman create for me at 10 PM last night.
There will be no test, no confirmation of understanding, and the training will not necessarily be created or administered by anyone qualified to begin with. Most likely, Taro will be asked to include any "consultations" in his daily report, and even if anyone thinks to make it anonymous, context will make things pretty clear. Everyone around Taro will know that he is essentially powerless, or worse, a snitch, and he will seldom or never have to perform this duty. His handbook will collect dust.
Promptly investigate facts pertaining to alleged power harassment and, if the occurrence of harassment is confirmed, promptly take measures to provide care for victimized employees, such as by relocating them, and to reprimand the perpetrator in accordance with the employment rules.
Make employees thoroughly informed of the necessity of confidentiality and the prohibition of disadvantageous treatment. (Guidelines at 11–19.)
Aside from that last thing (which is also just a markup to the handbook) this actually has LAYERS of uselessness.
Firstly, any investigation actually happening or turning anything up depends completely on workplace culture, and in a company where this kind of thing is an issue, generally an "investigation" barely happens at all. Almost more insidious are the grayer companies, where an investigation happens, and a perpetrator is then called into an office and rebuked, apologizes, and the whole incident is then forgotten and the pattern repeats without any real change.
And then we have this creepy bit of relocating them. This is not care, this is a threat. Relocation in a Japanese company happens, it happens to everyone, but because it's so common (of course in some industries more than others) it can be used as a social cudgel without it being obvious that that's what's happening.
Moving sucks and often it means splitting up families. Relocation is a quiet punishment that looks like a regular bit of administrative bad luck, because often it's not a punishment for doing anything actually wrong, just for not fitting in very well or for annoying someone with a little power. "If you report harassment, you will be relocated" sounds more chilling than reassuring, the fact that relocation for a victimized employee (and not the harasser) is suggested here really startled me.
But here is what it's really about:
Alleged victims who are not satisfied with the employer’s solution can request mediation through the prefecture labor bureau. (Labor Policy Comprehensive Promotion Act art. 30-6.)
This is what people are already doing. This is the ONLY thing that actually helps and is creating the gradual improvements that are happening. On the one hand, the guidelines might remind people that what they're experiencing is wrong and send them to the labor bureau, which is good, but on the other, a company could feasibly use a kind of malicious compliance to put more barriers between an employee and going to the labor bureau, which would be bad. I'm not sure which of these is more likely to happen. I think the labor bureau is counting on/hoping for the first one, because they generally don't mess around when it comes to complaints.
In the past, this kind of harassment discussion was mainly focused on shouting, direct insults, occasionally physical violence, and other things that look obviously like bullying, but as those have become more taboo and harder to get away with, power harassment hasn't gone away, it's just changed its shape.
There is tremendous emphasis on things unsaid, and in many companies, your ability to pick up on incredibly subtle social cues is absolutely critical, not just to having friends at work, but to having a job or any chance of success. And this isn't an exclusive Japan thing at all, but it is a thing that matters here. Remember that time people were speculating that Queen Elizabeth insulted Donald Trump by wearing a specific brooch? It's THAT kind of communication sometimes.
Inside the system, when everyone's conscious of it, receiving these kinds of coded "you're on thin ice" messages in excess all the time (as bad bosses will do) can be so miserably anxiety-inducing that it causes trauma and, in really dire cases, even suicidal ideation/behavior. And yet, from the outside, most of the actual incidents have incredible plausible deniability, just like Queen Elizabeth could say "oh, I just like that brooch and thought it went well with the suit."
So I'm kind of sympathetic to the impossibility of writing good legislation on this, but also pessimistic about it actually creating change in any but the most blatant cases (which will then be used to demonstrate that it's working.)
posted by gloriouslyincandescent at 7:27 PM on June 24, 2020 [7 favorites]
I'm a long term resident of Japan. The first thing that stands out to me is that it doesn't affect me, as small to medium businesses basically don't need to worry about this until April 2022. (The definition of small to medium businesses depends on the kind of business, number of employees, and how much capital the business has) I mean, I guess they're supposed to "try" to work toward doing these things, but they don't have to, which means they won't.
In fact, it might not affect me or my husband anyway after that point, because I don't know if nonprofit organizations or forestry co-ops actually count as businesses.
It does seem like this gives "power harassment" a legal definition and makes preventing it something that is the employer's responsibility (weird that that was not the case before!!). I wish it had a lot more "teeth," because it sounds like the worst thing that can happen is being warned by the government and maybe having the business's name made public.
The definition given is what would be mostly called abuse, harassment or bullying in English: physical and emotional abuse, isolating or ignoring certain employees, punishing with unnecessary work, purposefully assigning way too little work, privacy violation etc.
About loan words: lots of loan words make it into Japanese, it's not just negative topics. If it seems that way, maybe that's more about what borrowed words have made it back into English articles about Japan. Something like "sexual harassment" is too much of a mouthful to say in Japanese, so it gets shortened to "sekuhara," which just a feature of the language but happens to sound cute or something, so that combination of cute-sounding and disturbing or serious topic makes it interesting enough to get attention in English.
My impression is that some things are borrowed words because whoever made up the term wants to sound impressive and academic, or just to borrow the whole concept wholesale from another language, or maybe to give it a sense of "this is a New Concept!" But I’m not a native speaker and not a linguist.
(This reminds me actually of English articles that just take something completely normal and not unique to Japan at all and use the Japanese word for it to make it seem exotic. A pretty awful article came out earlier this year about "kakeibo," which just means keeping a family budget, but the author was going on and on about mindfulness and minimalism. Many folks on Twitter were having a field day about "the ancient art of futsukayoi" (hangovers) and "the mystic tradition of using enpitsu" (pencils).)
posted by sacchan at 8:01 PM on June 24, 2020 [4 favorites]
In fact, it might not affect me or my husband anyway after that point, because I don't know if nonprofit organizations or forestry co-ops actually count as businesses.
It does seem like this gives "power harassment" a legal definition and makes preventing it something that is the employer's responsibility (weird that that was not the case before!!). I wish it had a lot more "teeth," because it sounds like the worst thing that can happen is being warned by the government and maybe having the business's name made public.
The definition given is what would be mostly called abuse, harassment or bullying in English: physical and emotional abuse, isolating or ignoring certain employees, punishing with unnecessary work, purposefully assigning way too little work, privacy violation etc.
About loan words: lots of loan words make it into Japanese, it's not just negative topics. If it seems that way, maybe that's more about what borrowed words have made it back into English articles about Japan. Something like "sexual harassment" is too much of a mouthful to say in Japanese, so it gets shortened to "sekuhara," which just a feature of the language but happens to sound cute or something, so that combination of cute-sounding and disturbing or serious topic makes it interesting enough to get attention in English.
My impression is that some things are borrowed words because whoever made up the term wants to sound impressive and academic, or just to borrow the whole concept wholesale from another language, or maybe to give it a sense of "this is a New Concept!" But I’m not a native speaker and not a linguist.
(This reminds me actually of English articles that just take something completely normal and not unique to Japan at all and use the Japanese word for it to make it seem exotic. A pretty awful article came out earlier this year about "kakeibo," which just means keeping a family budget, but the author was going on and on about mindfulness and minimalism. Many folks on Twitter were having a field day about "the ancient art of futsukayoi" (hangovers) and "the mystic tradition of using enpitsu" (pencils).)
posted by sacchan at 8:01 PM on June 24, 2020 [4 favorites]
There's a pretty common phenomenon (which I think has a proper technical name that I can't recall), in which language A and language B have substantially equivalent words/phrases for something, but language A borrows the language B word to refer to a narrower slice of meaning than either the language A word or the language B word had in their original languages. So the loanword becomes a kind of shortcut to conceptual precision that would otherwise require a bunch of qualifiers. There are abundant examples of this among into-English loanwords as well, of course.
It seems to me that "power harassment" would be at least partly an example of this, since "power" in English is quite ambiguous in this context (almost any sort of harassment involves some kind of power the harasser holds over the harassee). Hence the English-language literature around the concept had mostly used phrases like "political power harassment"... But as a loanword freed from its English context, "power harassment" can acquire a much more precise scope -- in this case, harassment based on the specific kind of power that arises in a workplace hierarchy.
(And now of course "power harassment" has been ported back into English, where it IMO fills a significant void given that "workplace bullying" is rather imprecise.)
Possibly of note here, the Power Harassment Prevention Act eschews the loanword and uses the defined term "優越的言動問題" instead.
posted by Not A Thing at 9:17 PM on June 24, 2020 [3 favorites]
It seems to me that "power harassment" would be at least partly an example of this, since "power" in English is quite ambiguous in this context (almost any sort of harassment involves some kind of power the harasser holds over the harassee). Hence the English-language literature around the concept had mostly used phrases like "political power harassment"... But as a loanword freed from its English context, "power harassment" can acquire a much more precise scope -- in this case, harassment based on the specific kind of power that arises in a workplace hierarchy.
(And now of course "power harassment" has been ported back into English, where it IMO fills a significant void given that "workplace bullying" is rather imprecise.)
Possibly of note here, the Power Harassment Prevention Act eschews the loanword and uses the defined term "優越的言動問題" instead.
posted by Not A Thing at 9:17 PM on June 24, 2020 [3 favorites]
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