· June, 2008

Stories about Labor from June, 2008

Japan: Minimum Wage

  19 June 2008

James blogs about the minimum wage policy in Japan with a chart comparing the wage standard in different countries.

Russia: Poverty

Sean's Russia Blog writes about poverty in Russia: “Apparently living poor isn’t just about surviving, it’s about surviving artfully.”

Japan: Reflections on the Akiba Massacre (Part 1)

  14 June 2008

When all the dust had settled and the knife rampage in Tokyo's Akihabara district last Sunday, which took the lives of seven people and left 17 injured, had come to a close, many were left wondering what it all really meant. In this post, bloggers offer their perspectives about what may have driven Tomohiro Kato to kill and injure so many people.

Japan: Toyota's Kanban System, Applied to Humans

  13 June 2008

A post by blogger boiledema [ja], offering an alternative perspective on the background of Tomohiro Kato, offender in Sunday's Akiba massacre, has drawn a huge reaction, with over 1200 bookmarks [ja] on Hatena. boiledema suggests that Toyota's system of Kanban production is being applied to human beings, through unstable short-term...

Japan: Work Culture

  12 June 2008

Harvey from Japan newbie discusses about work culture and the phenomena of “death by overwork” in Japan.

China: Olympic outhouses catch on fire, explode

  11 June 2008

The 24 Hours Online blogger Laohu ‘Tiger Temple’ Miao, who spent months earlier this year blogging the stories of destitute Beijing residents whose makeshift homes were harmonized to make way for the Olympics brings us a post today about a fire yesterday not far from the Olympic Bird Nest which...

Japan: The problems facing Japan's IT industry

  10 June 2008

An article in the New York Times a few weeks ago, describing a chronic shortage of engineers in Japan, received support from many Japanese bloggers. The article explains that young people in Japanare more interested nowadays with fields like finance or medicine, or creative careers like the arts, then they are with engineering, with one estimate putting the shortage of engineers at almost half a million.

Bulgaria: Women's Rights

Kyle Grady of What's Going Down? writes an open letter to the editors of Lifestyle.bg and author Tihomir Dimitrov, prompting a heated discussion on Bulgaria, feminism, women's rights and other issues (41 comments so far).

India: Ending slavery

  3 June 2008

The Weight of Silence from India on an online global competition to identify innovative approaches to exposing, confronting and ending modern-day slavery.

Bahrain: In the Land of Law

Bahraini blogger Khalid is surprised with the knee jerk reactions taken by the government - after the Minister of Interior issued an order to ban issuing work permits for workers from Bangladesh - in a country which prides itself of being a democracy with laws and a constitution in place.