Valid point, workers must be careful what companies they choose to work for.
Abuses will exist wherever oversight is insufficient.
Planning to remain in Japan after reaching the age of 'no longer able to work' is a condition that permanent resident visa, if the proposed changes actually occur and persist, may no longer provide. Given that, then contributing to the national retirement/pension plan and preparing for naturalization would seem to be the proper route to that long term expectation of reciprocal security.
If the job pay is 'lower than a Japanese worker would accept' then that does indeed classify as abuse of the SSW1 designated rules. As they have been explained to me by legal council, SSW1 rules state explicitly that employees must receive at least as much pay as would cost for a local laborer, in order to not depress local labor values.
If this is the condition that you or persons known to you are working in, that is a reason needed for a change in employment.
A JLPT test is not typically part of the SSW2 requirement, at least for the industries I have studied the test material for, but the tests are in Japanese at about JLPT4/3ish level. Each tests specific vocabulary (the kanji portion) are very specific and one can focus on learning the necessary content which is a much lower threshold than JLPT3, but studying for that does become dependent on the work-life balance aspect. Clear communication with an earnest and fair employer is important for establishing that; and it sounds like you are having some difficulties with this side of things. That is unfortunate.
I don't have any magic tricks for not getting taken advantage of; but know that it appears your experience with the SSW1 is not necessarily typical of the program as intended, and there may be some alternatives to feeling trapped or not valued in the long term here.
Is your 登録支援機関 (tōroku shien kikan) Registered Support Organization an active participant in the necessary oversight, or have they effectively been rubber-stamping the actions that have led to this situation?
That was where I was leaning on the socialization aspect. The RSO has some responsibility in making sure SSW workers are aware of the scheduled community building events in order to facilitate socialization and acculturation - these can always be done independently, but there's an obligation to facilitate these for the RSO.
Having active opportunities to interact (again work-life balance) can be a big help in working toward fluency, which I feel should be a goal for anyone planning a long term habitation in any country. In Samoa this is fa'asamoa, "Fesili muli mai ia mua mai" when arriving follow who came first, the "When in Rome do as the Romans" and in Japanese 郷に入ってはば郷に従う go ni iteba go ni shitagau.
If there is anything you think I might be able to do to help, I am willing to try. もし手伝う事があれば遠慮なくネ
I appreciate your offer but I have always been on the Eng. SOR and I have PR for quite some time now, so all these changes do not concern me immediately. What I argue is that the whole program is riddled with avenues for abuse and very little recourse for a worker. And I have seen first-hand accounts of such abuse and I try to tell you that your positive experience does not invalidate the shortcomings of the SSW visa.
I see. This further confirms what I have long observed. It's almost like there are two Japans; the hectic borderline hostile-to-general success big city, and the rest of the country where everybody generally is trying to help each other out. So I do get your point. There is plenty of room for abuse in the TITP / SSW visa, and these abuses do seem to be happening at scale where black companies contract with RSO to find and supply a stream of workers to one organization which then are subcontracted out. It's deplorable behaviour.
It isn't obvious that the SSW program itself is designed with abuse as an intended outcome. I also don't get the strong sense that these changes to the PR process, at least what actual documentation is on https://www.moj.go.jp, are going to have much real impact other than prompting those with a real long term commitment to life in Japan to look more closely at the naturalisation process and possibly motivate SSW1 workers to be more serious about upskill to SSW2.
Because SSW1 time no longer applies to the 10 year PR eligibility (which can be shorter with "contribution to Japanese society" https://www.moj.go.jp/isa/content/930003503.pdf), this makes staying at SSW1 for longer than 2-3 years a bit wasteful if the goal is PR.
Perhaps there is some room in this system for well-managed RSOs to take a more active role in helping current SSW1 employees take the necessary steps to prepare for transition to SSW2 and perhaps this kind of action is something that rural townships should look at as a mechanism to improve their local workforce options.
I wonder if there's any employers in your extended network who could gain from having access to workers already holding SSW1 visas with 2+ year remaining on visa and helping prepare those workers for SSW2 testing and retention along with long-term work contracts. It would seem to be a real opportunity for companies struggling to meet production objectives due to labor shortages without the potentially high initial capital cost of finding those workers from abroad and the cost of turnover and training that come from short term new workers.
I'm just kinda thinking out loud here; it seems to me that where there are avenues for abuse which appear to offer little recourse for the workers, then there may be an avenue to offer that recourse and in turn benefit from the ready capability and earned loyalty of those workers. Sure, your bed-pan example is a worst case job scenario, but that field of SSW is not restricted to only bed-pan level work, and surely there are companies who need quite a range of ready workforce for many tasks that would fit the same visa which can pay a decent wage for skilled labor which are not 'black companies'.
I'll try to introduce some of this into the discussions at my next informal soudan kikai. The shiyakusho team heree has been great at facilitating the network of contacts and interested parties which has enabled our current opportunities, and been very involved in every step from the moment we showed interest in living out here in the 'inaka'.
Abuses will exist wherever oversight is insufficient.
Planning to remain in Japan after reaching the age of 'no longer able to work' is a condition that permanent resident visa, if the proposed changes actually occur and persist, may no longer provide. Given that, then contributing to the national retirement/pension plan and preparing for naturalization would seem to be the proper route to that long term expectation of reciprocal security.
If the job pay is 'lower than a Japanese worker would accept' then that does indeed classify as abuse of the SSW1 designated rules. As they have been explained to me by legal council, SSW1 rules state explicitly that employees must receive at least as much pay as would cost for a local laborer, in order to not depress local labor values.
If this is the condition that you or persons known to you are working in, that is a reason needed for a change in employment.
A JLPT test is not typically part of the SSW2 requirement, at least for the industries I have studied the test material for, but the tests are in Japanese at about JLPT4/3ish level. Each tests specific vocabulary (the kanji portion) are very specific and one can focus on learning the necessary content which is a much lower threshold than JLPT3, but studying for that does become dependent on the work-life balance aspect. Clear communication with an earnest and fair employer is important for establishing that; and it sounds like you are having some difficulties with this side of things. That is unfortunate.
I don't have any magic tricks for not getting taken advantage of; but know that it appears your experience with the SSW1 is not necessarily typical of the program as intended, and there may be some alternatives to feeling trapped or not valued in the long term here.
Is your 登録支援機関 (tōroku shien kikan) Registered Support Organization an active participant in the necessary oversight, or have they effectively been rubber-stamping the actions that have led to this situation?
That was where I was leaning on the socialization aspect. The RSO has some responsibility in making sure SSW workers are aware of the scheduled community building events in order to facilitate socialization and acculturation - these can always be done independently, but there's an obligation to facilitate these for the RSO.
Having active opportunities to interact (again work-life balance) can be a big help in working toward fluency, which I feel should be a goal for anyone planning a long term habitation in any country. In Samoa this is fa'asamoa, "Fesili muli mai ia mua mai" when arriving follow who came first, the "When in Rome do as the Romans" and in Japanese 郷に入ってはば郷に従う go ni iteba go ni shitagau.
If there is anything you think I might be able to do to help, I am willing to try. もし手伝う事があれば遠慮なくネ