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

The term "sweatshop" is associated with manufacturing, and the garment trade in particular; however, in Japan black companies are more often associated with office work than the clothing industry.

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, died by suicide two months after joining the company in 2008.^[2] 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 (equivalent to ¥132.52 million in 2019) with the family, and Watami founder Miki Watanabe apologized.^[5]

References

^ ^a ^b Mie, Atako (9 December 2015). "Pub chain Watami, founder settle suit over suicide of overworked staffer". Japan Times. ISSN 0447-5763. OCLC 21225620. Archived from the original on 6 February 2024. Retrieved 16 February 2024.
^ Clements, Sam (18 December 2012). "Japan's Suicidal Salarymen are dying for work". Vice. ISSN 1077-6788. OCLC 30856250. Archived from the original on 7 November 2023. Retrieved 16 February 2024. Earlier this year, the suicide of 26-year-old Mina Mori was accepted as karoshi after an investigation found she'd been clocking up 140 hours of overtime every month, working at a popular chain restaurant called Watami.
^ "Izakaya restaurant chain worker's suicide recognized as work-related". Japan Press Weekly. 22–28 February 2012. Archived from the original on 16 February 2024. Retrieved 16 February 2024. On February 14, a workers' accident compensation insurance examiner determined that a worker of a major Japanese casual dining and drinking (izakaya) chain company committed suicide due to mental health problems caused by excessively long working hours.
^ Brasor, Philip (17 June 2012). "Watami under scrutiny after karōshi". Japan Times. ISSN 0447-5763. OCLC 21225620. Archived from the original on 4 June 2023. Retrieved 16 February 2024. On Feb. 14, the Kanagawa Prefecture Labor Standards Office deemed the death of 26-year-old Mina Mori, who committed suicide on June 12, 2008, to be a case of karōshi, or "death from overwork."
^ Jiji, Kyodo (9 December 2015). "Pub chain Watami, founder settle suit over suicide of overworked staffer". Japan Times. ISSN 0447-5763. OCLC 21225620. Archived from the original on 11 December 2015. Retrieved 16 February 2024. The defendants, including the company and its founder, Upper House lawmaker Miki Watanabe, agreed on Tuesday to pay around ¥130 million in damages, said Kazunari Tamaki, a lawyer for the woman's parents.