There are outbreaks of the trouble between the foreign workers and Japanese all over Japan. That means, these troubles are derived from an anxiety about the employment of foreign workers and are related to the labor problem. It is a matter of Japanese labor law included the set of minimum wage system and compulsory work. It is important that for foreign workers, employers should prepare the system same as the Japanese workers, which can applied to the foreign workers. Also, there are more and more action against the company by foreign workers. In the face of these problems, to constructing the place or system where foreign workers and Japanese can discuss these problems is very important. One of the treatments of setting the place is a meeting for the city where many foreign people are living in,  “外国人集住都市会議” in Japanese. This meeting is made by Hamamatsu local government and associations that support cultural exchange between the countries.

It is established 10 years ago and its purposes are to get along with each other (foreign workers and Japanese) and to get the solutions for these regional problems by tackling positively. In 2009, this organization demanded an agency for foreign people in terms of the need to take a policy that regards foreign people as “living people”, because there are a lot of foreign people who are out of work. Besides, the organization is asking to the government for financial assistance and compulsory education for foreign children to enrich the educational environment for the foreign children. In the 28 cities forming the organization, the rate of foreign people who are registered is 4,5 percent. Among them, Brazilians account for 55 percent. The cities where foreign peoples are living together are particularly, related to the company for the auto industry. That means they are one of the regions that faced the drastic cuts in personnel because of the recession in Japan. Especially, the rate of unemployed people is over the 30 percents in some cities among the 28 cities. It is clear that such a situation is disadvantage for foreign workers. Disadvantages for foreign people are from the aspect of culture, like the hardness of subtle communication by language.

In short, the problem is still around us despite of the organization. However, as you know, foreign people have the rights to live and make their livings. Therefore, a new system or reform of conciseness for foreign people is needed not to deprive them of their rights to live. Moreover, a countermeasure for foreign people who lives in out of 28 cities should be prepared. After this, it is necessarily to focus on the rights to live for foreign people because we tend to pay no attention to the minority. It is the problem that we cannot ignore in the globalization.

by Sayaka Kurata