洞院リナ ([info]pawteegal) wrote,
@ 2008-03-22 02:12:00
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Current mood: sad

Perfect world not so perfect
I know his is old news.. I'm revisiting now that it's nearly a month since the start of all the accusation regarding to Baby The Star Shine Bright's labor dispute.

It doesn't look like it will get any resolution anytime soon, My heart really goes out to these girls. They are hard workers with a real passion. One has to wonder how they survive with their level income. Shop staff pay are only around $9 to $12 /hr, with a small bus stipend for getting to and from work.

My wish is BTSSB to be an example, and show compassion tho these girls.

The following link is fro the Hyogo prefecture senior high school teacher's union website.
A demonstration march in respond to BTSSB's action ..
http://www.hyogo-kokyoso.com/index.php

[edit]
It appears a lot of people did not know of this incident. I'll quickly summarize.
4 employee were suddenly fired at the Baby Kobe branch. There is an claim for wrongful termination by the manager, and an association that the same manager harassed customer and the staff.


The the Baby company's respond is that this is the store manager's do, and the company has no responsibility for this matter. The liability is of course being disputed.
further clames is that over time pay was never given, and staffers were forced to buy the company's clothes by preemptively taking an amount out of their paychecks. Other problems also came out of the wood works such as hours allocation or lack there of in possible evade fulltime employee obligations, as we as the lack of social insurance.

They're vowing to fight until their firing is overturned, and retracted.

The group is supported and guided under the Japan Communist party, a very left wing union. It also appear that the teacher's union is in support of this as well.

source: http://www.jcp.or.jp/akahata/aik07/2008-03-06/2008030603_01_0.html

*note: Due to the many misconception of the Japan Communist Party. It is in fact quite left wing in the political spectrum, NOT what most western world think it is. please read these linksfor further information:
Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Communist_Party
Japanese Communist Party- http://www.jcp.or.jp/


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[info]ro_ren
2008-03-22 09:34 am UTC (link)
i haven't heard about this actually.
What happened?

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[info]pawteegal
2008-03-23 07:43 am UTC (link)
basically 4 staff girls got fired at the kobe store. Which unraveled a bunch of accusations of wrongful terminations, and worker rights abuse.. I've updated the original entry to include more information.
this is actually a pretty big ordeal.

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[info]mayuka13
2008-03-22 11:02 am UTC (link)
Ummm ... what happened??? Why is there a labor dispute? A lot of questions come to mind.

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[info]pawteegal
2008-03-23 07:43 am UTC (link)
Yup yup. I've updated the entry to include more relevant information.

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[info]lifeisforliving
2008-03-22 01:36 pm UTC (link)
I haven't heard of this either?

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[info]pawteegal
2008-03-23 07:45 am UTC (link)
It's been going on for nearly a month now. This might be a disappointment to many International shoppers which means more delays to the US store.. Baby have a lot of fish they need fry...
Btw, entry updated with more information.

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[info]smileysquid
2008-03-22 02:35 pm UTC (link)
wow.. this is certainly news to me.
i hope it gets resolved soon.

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[info]pawteegal
2008-03-23 07:46 am UTC (link)
Doesn't look like it'll get resolved any time soon. Baby's HQ respond had threw fuel into the fire.
entry updated with more info.

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[info]kuramew
2008-03-22 06:10 pm UTC (link)
I was only under the impression that retail work was like it is here -- you have young people who are still in school working for low wages in their spare time for some spending cash.

(I.E. I can't imagine anyone making a living wage from working at, say... Abercrombie and Fitch, Pac Sun, Claires, etc.) Don't get me wrong. There are some people who do, but I figure that the reason young people get higher education is so that they don't have to support themselves at minimum wage.

I thought that part of the debate with the BABY dispute was that BABY required the girls to supply their own wardrobe for work, which meant purchasing clothing at BABY (and even with a 15% discount, is quite a bit of money to own 1-2 week's worth of clothing to rotate on a regular basis).

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[info]mayuka13
2008-03-23 12:10 am UTC (link)
I'm not sure how the labor laws work in Japan but being a former retail slave worker myself I do know that there are some things taht I think its really nice:

* The $9.00-$12.00 hourly wage which is WAY more than what a retail person here would make. The current minimum wage now is $7.50/per hour.

*The fact that the girls are offered a stipend for bus and train is an added perk. For us its mileage since we mostly drive. ^_^;

The ugly:
*Not getting paid overtime--which I really think sucks knobs. I believe these girls works an average of 8-12 hour working days. I do know that here once you reach the 9-10 hours you get time and half, when you exceed 13-15 hours its double time, and when its the 16th hour and after its "golden hour."

*Having to attend company events and NOT geting paid for that? Gee, that's pretty lame. Volks (Super Dollfie) employees get paid when they have to work events and the volunteers that work at events like Dolpa are offered a meal and a nice gift as a token of appreciation.

*I do KNOW for a fact that in this state, if you have to buy clothes for a clothing retailer to "represent the brand" is considered illegal and unfair. I know this because I use to work for 'Banana Republic' and I got a piece of the settlement: http://compensation.blr.com/display.cfm/id/154050

*I do know that the employee discounts are pretty lame and unfair.

I know I keep going back and forth with comparing US Labor Laws to however Japan does theirs. I wished I knew and understood it more.

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[info]pawteegal
2008-03-23 09:29 am UTC (link)
Don't forget the cost of living is extremely hight here, equal to that of San Francisco. Plus double the price of food.

I'm not sure what Japan have as far as OT rules, but I am sure there are some. But typically hourly workers leave on the dot, and salary people stays for ungodly hours.

I dont know if they do not get paid for events nor not. But I can tell you, one here on this side of the planet will do that. I can bet you none of the people from any of the large publishion houses (Viz, TP etc) would bother to do anything on a weekend or night time if they were promise some sort of a compensation such as days off.


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[info]pawteegal
2008-03-23 08:46 am UTC (link)
From what I know the discount is only 30%. At that rate, it's still an extremely heavy burden,
And the case of Abercrumbie & fitch, Banana Republic came to mind too.
But most respectably company like Diesel gives their staff a clothing stipend of $100. It's not a lot, but it most certainly help on top of deep discounts.

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[info]risquecutie
2008-03-22 06:54 pm UTC (link)
I have to look into this as well. Tells you how much I've been able to keep up. Some interesting facts there...

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[info]pawteegal
2008-03-23 08:50 am UTC (link)
Updated the entry with more information..

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[info]risquecutie
2008-03-25 06:53 am UTC (link)
Thanks. Even more interesting...and might explain a few things. It really does sound like something that happens in the States more than over there, but one never knows. Work ethics now-a-days make me shake my head...

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[info]sekiria
2008-03-23 03:13 am UTC (link)
This pisses me off that the shop girls' love for the company's product and vision was being exploited for the bottom line. I always thought part of the reason why the items cost this much is that it goes to quality, quality in materials, quality within the company. If Baby has to resort to treating their ground-force workers the way Best Buy and other big box retailers here in the USA push them, that doesn't portray a very good business practice or profitability at all.

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[info]mayuka13
2008-03-23 03:41 am UTC (link)
Ticks me off too (as if there wasn't enough strikes going on as it is!). Think about it, Baby's been opening up more locations in Japan ... or at least its something I've been observing the last serveral months, raising their prices (notice their $400-$500 OPs lately?), and their craptacular yet slow customer service. (I'm having paypal problems with them at the moment ... *grumble-grumble*)

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[info]sekiria
2008-03-23 05:06 am UTC (link)
I am so ... I dunno, I feel kind of hurt by this. The $400 for one item that I was willing to blow was in part, because I had a dream that this was going towards a dream, you know what I mean? A tiny, independent, super creative force struggling to make it in the world, with a small team of dedicated and quality staff. I was willing to support that (and overlook really shitty delays and abrupt CSRs). Of course the *look* was also what I was going for but my wallet openings were greased by the aforementioned. I could feel like yeah, well, even if it is expensive, at least it's a piece of my income that's not going into the regular machine, it's going to some frilly revolutionaries. Call me anything if not idealistic. :( What am I going to do?!? Alice and the Pirates is like, my life!

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[info]mayuka13
2008-03-23 05:36 am UTC (link)
I hear ya, sweetie. I just placed an order with stuff by Baby recently. I'm getting quite a bit of stuff by Baby (Alice themed) which was intended to be worn to a friend's engagement party (she's doing an 'Alice & Wonderland' themed wedding). But seeing all this ... the people who are working retail under Baby ... what they ask for isn't unreasonable either. Makes me wonder if Lolitas will form a union. :x

I am torn and wonder if I should boycott wearing Baby for a while. *sigh!* :

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[info]pawteegal
2008-03-23 09:11 am UTC (link)
The girls are already backed by a union..
I've updated the original post to include more information. But like yourself, I am sure many people are feeling displeased of is.

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[info]pawteegal
2008-03-23 09:09 am UTC (link)
I think many of us has lost considerable confident in Baby due all of their recent actions.
Like many successful companies, I feel they have some what deviated from their original philosophies due to their rapid growth. However, Baby is not the be all end off of lolita brands. Don't be too discourage, as there are many more companies out there that still holds very truth to their vision despite success. Perhaps an evolution of your style might in order...

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[info]sekiria
2008-03-23 06:17 pm UTC (link)
I think I'm going to stick to *not* buying from Baby until they change their policy. At least, not buying *new* - does that make me insincere? ha!

Although that pissed me off as well - shaving Novala off their company (after all his efforts for them in the USA!) is one thing but this is another. Baby reminds me of a company equivalent of the lolita bitch in the room everyone complains about.

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[info]pawteegal
2008-03-23 08:53 am UTC (link)
Far too expensive for my rootbeer budget, thats for sure. I think they have much to worry about than just slow responds now..

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[info]pawteegal
2008-03-23 08:38 am UTC (link)
It is very disconcerting how this had panned out. Especially the from the company's official responds of non-liability. I do have to wonder how this will affect their customer loyalty.

Baby seem to be horrible in handling any issue that involves individual problems. While it is a very Japanese social normality. It really paints a picture of callus to the rest of the world. First the excommunication of Novala, now this.

I sincerely hope Baby get a sudden epiphany that we're no longer just japan. This sort of back turning is quite unacceptable everywhere else, and decides to break the status-quo, and live up to what they were founded upon.

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[info]mayuka13
2008-03-23 06:27 pm UTC (link)
I think what gets me here is why is Isobe acting all non-confrontational? He needs to make a decision on where this should stand. Acting like "Oh, this is the manager at this branch's decision" not mind makes me go ... XO

Its like ummm ... it's your company. Do you stand by the store manager's decision or the sales girls that were wrongfully terminated??? Come on--make a decision, Isobe!!!

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[info]lifeisforliving
2008-03-23 09:37 pm UTC (link)
I agree - the store manager represented the company, so he can't just blame it on that person and distance himself from any problems at the branch level, I mean he is the boss! And this kind of coporate/company responsibility goes for Japan and elsewhere.

I understand that girls choose to work at Baby or other lolita fashion shops are not there purely for the money, but then they should still deserve reasonable treatments.

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