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Goodwill Group showing anything but

July 6, 2007
By Ken Worsley


With the recent news that Morgan Stanley has upped its stake in Goodwill Group to 13.62 percent and with UBS pushing its holdings in the company to 9.51 percent, it seemed as though the scandals surrounding Goodwill and its subsidiary, disgraced nursing care provider Comsn, might be about to become a thing of the past.

After all, elder care and temporary worker dispatch services are both huge growth industries in Japan. With over 30% of Japan’s workforce now working as contract employees, there’s bound to be more and more money in that game. And who ever made money without at least getting a few fingernails dirty?

But with a President like Masahiro Origuchi at the helm, you know another scandal is always just around the corner. This guy just can’t get enough of ripping off his own clients and cheating the system by exploiting the weak. First it was the elderly. Now it’s temporary workers.

It will be hitting the newspapers tomorrow that Goodwill group has been illegally deducting ‘data processing fees’ and ‘administration’ fees from the already low salaries of the temp workers that it dispatches to companies all over Japan.

Taking 200 to 250 yen a pop off of each paycheck may not seem like much, but it adds up when one sends thousands of unsuspecting employees off to work. These are people often just trying to get by, and the rise in the number of non-regular workers as a percentage of Japan’s workforce has been one of the strongest contributing factors to the continued erosion of Japan’s middle class and the financial inability of Japan’s families to afford more than one child.

Remember Noriko Hama on corporate social responsibility in Japan?

I will hold off on passing judgment on firms that have invested in the Goodwill Group until they have had a chance to divest and distance themselves from such business practices.

Mr Origuchi, was that money worth it? Was it worth it to take away some otoshidama here and there so you could have a new Ferrari, or whatever? I really hope so. I really hope you surround yourself with obsequious yes-men who at least pretend to respect you, because in reality, they don’t.

No one does.

Filed Under Business, Labor and Wages, Law, White Collar Crime 

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Comments

One Response to “Goodwill Group showing anything but”

  1. Steve Schapiro on July 7th, 2007 3:14 pm

    Japan may not have overzealous prosecutors in the mold of those in the US, but it does have prosecutors who generally get their way. The way to deal with white collar criminals who are apparently not as bad as petty thieves ecause they destroy thousands of people’s livelihoods instead of just one person’s is to add up the total amount they cheated or lied about, esp. in a case as clear as Origuchi’s, and charge them with grand theft, or multiple counts thereof. Let them go to real prison with a real sentence. Or charge Origuchi with thousands of counnts of petty larceny or violations of labor laws. Isn’t there any way to charge investors in Comsn - those who may have known about his practices - with aiding and abetting a felony? If there’s not, there should be.

    I realize that the concept of white collar crime being crime is new in Japan, but it is taken far too lightly the world over.

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