For quite some time now the number of foreign-born employees at places such as convenience stores has been steadily rising. I kind of like it, because I tend to feel a lot less self-conscious about my own Japanese when speaking to a clerk whose first language also isn’t Japanese.
But for employers, many of whom are deeply accustomed to the homogenous culture of Japan, it means a greater understanding of diversity is needed. This is something that convenience store chain Lawson is getting an education in, from a group of 10 employees originally from countries such as Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal.
▼ Members of the group speak to media outside Lawson HQ.
They are all employed at Lawson stores in Saitama Prefecture through a work placement service and requested collective bargaining with the chain to renegotiate the terms of their employment on August 1 at the Lawson corporate headquarters in Tokyo.
During the meeting they aired several grievances with their current employment system, such as not having transportation expenses covered and being forced to buy seasonal products from their own store like ehomaki sushi rolls and Christmas cakes.
▼ Ehomaki and Christmas cakes both generally sell for somewhere in the neighborhood of 2,000 yen each at convenience stores.

They say that in some cases they weren’t even able to eat the things they were required to buy, for reasons such as religious dietary restrictions. “I threw away most of the things they made me buy,” said one Hindu employee from Bangladesh.
In fairness, some people here might be oblivious to the inherent wrongness of making a Muslim or Hindu buy a Christmas cake.
While there was some grumbling among online comments suggesting employees should just quit their job if they don’t like the conditions, most agreed that companies making their employees buy their own products, especially when it goes against their beliefs, is a policy that ought to be changed.
“Is it one of those things where if the employee doesn’t sell enough, they have to buy the rest to make up for the quota?”
“There’s a religion that doesn’t eat sushi rolls?”
“I guess Lawson sells those sushi rolls with pork and beef inside.”
“It’s bad enough to put quotas on part-time workers, but against their religion is just awful.”
“Japanese people would just silently take it and bottle up their anger, but foreigners band together and demand better. Good for them!”
“Isn’t it technically a crime to make someone buy something that’s against their beliefs?”
“Ehomaki isn’t even that delicious.”
Aside from that last comment, which is just flat out wrong in my opinion, some good points were made about the issue. This practice of employees being made to purchase their own products to meet quotas in certain industries is not uncommon in Japan and is known as jibaku eigyo which means “self-destruct sales” in English.
This of course only boosts a company or branch’s sales figures at the expense of siphoning money from their own employees, hence the “self-destruct.” It’s also in violation of the Labor Standards Act, and when the religious aspect is included we’re looking at a possible violation of constitutional rights.
A Lawson rep told media that they are still reviewing the facts of the employees’ requests, but the potential violations implied in them cannot be lost on the corporation. So, hopefully they will review the working conditions in stores and rectify the situation, not only for their foreign employees but their Japanese ones as well.
Sources: Tokyo Shimbun, Itai News
Read more stories from SoraNews24.
-- Cost of uneaten ehomaki sushi rolls in 2022 estimated to be over one billion yen
-- Japanese department store wishes you a good year ahead with 150 types of delicious ehomaki
-- Japan now has over 40,000 foreign convenience store clerks as it continues to internationalize
© SoraNews24
80 Comments
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virusrex
It is sad that foreign employees were the first to denounce these unfair practices, it is quite obvious the japanese employees are also subjected to the same abuses, and would have every right to protest and demand a change.
Guy-Gin
Next time I pass a Lawsons and feel a bit peckish I may well just think twice and go elsewhere.
BigP
Yes, I think I’ll go elsewhere too.
sakurasuki
Changed? That policy shouldn't be exist at all!
Those employee just there to work not to buy things, were their managers tell them and told them that is Japanese way?
didou
Isn’t it some franchise shop ?
So is that the company itself, or the franchise owner who ask them ?
Yubaru
There is no "in fairness" for ignorance! You hired a foreigner, not a Japanese, and you know damn well things are different. If you don't, you are an idiot to begin with and shouldn't be in the job you have!
(Oh and making Japanese employees do the same thing is wrong too!)
Yubaru
And the "Japanese" employees should be banding together as well to stop these corporations from ripping them off. Lawson's and any other convenience store Christmas Cake is over priced anyway and not that great, hence they having to force someone to buy it!
TrevorPeace
If true, this is a disgusting act for a corporation. And Lawson's is off my list of convenience stores. I'll walk another half a block to a competitor. They're that common.
WA4TKG
I would refuse to buy the crap and if they retaliate, go file a complaint with the proper authorities. I was told I had to QUIT a job, that I always came to work on time to, etc.
I won the arbitration and was paid + / - ¥500, 000.
Don’t put up with it.
Myop
Don’t know about Family Mart but a fellow Japanese said the same thing about 7/11
dagon
The work placement service and dispatching middlemen are a big part of the problem. They provide a buffer for abusive businesses and are often conveniently fly by night.
The businesses are just following the corporate welfare model. Workers taxes go to subsidize corporations and even more of their wages go to prop up businesses who privatize the profits .
Mark
Not surprised, when you are away from Home and vulnerable all the Vulture are after you. Japanese businesses for years have abused their own people, worked them to death, with low pay, poor conditions, and extreme power harassment , so it doesn't surprise me to see Lawson being called out.
The Avenger
This sort of thing happens in so many other companies.
Same goes for Japan Post (JP) employees forced to purchase New Year's postcards out of pocket to meet the quota.
Yrral
Maybe Japanese should realize people do not want to be a part of their culture,they just want to live their lives in Japan,by obeying the laws and respect culture norm
ebisen
The guy complaining about the "aho-maki" (pun intended) not being that delicious is correct. Especially after sitting in the fridge for a day... Why keep a product that doesn't sell well - beats me .. plus, all these individually wrapped in 2-3b layers of plastic products are incredibly bad for the environment. The nori (seaweed paper) is supposed to be the actual edible wrap of anything "nigiri" or "maki".
ebisen
Yirral:
"Maybe Japanese should realize people do not want to be a part of their culture,they just want to live their lives in Japan,by obeying the laws and respect culture norm"
That is assinine. No intention to integrate but love the money? Sounds like some of the minorities now entering Europe.
GuruMick
In Australia corporations like this, and farm operators chronically underpaid employees from overseas for years.
Then KABOOM....employees got together and initiated action through "Fair Work Australia " and other Government legal agencies.
Result....all the offending companies and employers where required to repay MILLIONS in unpaid wages.
A common instance was the ability of employers to tie employment with employees desire to obtain a longer visa...something usually requiring a period of work
Sven Asai
How about simply less producing of that crap nobody wants to buy and eat? Normally everyone eats sushi at a sushi restaurant and those over-creamy calorie bombs called Christmas cakes have nothing to do with Christmas anywhere on this planet and are already a visual nuisance and cause pre-vomiting feelings only from looking at. Out of the shelves it would make Lawson happy, because of less production and storage costs and better image, and the forced foreign and national staff becomes also happy, not anymore being forced into those grey zone norma buyings.
Readyfortakeoff
Love Lawson. I think it is time buy some great items at Lawsons.
CaptDingleheimer
Japanese in position of power tend to abuse it to some degree. Absolutely uninterested in ever working for a Japanese company.
Yrral
Tokyolivng, Japanese in Hokkaido probably have different culture from the Japanese in Tokyo,the right to be an individual and not group think ,foster personal growth,it seem like Japanese have imitated others ,their is no Japanese Facebook, Twitter or other popular social media
wallace
Yrral
How would you know if you have never been here?
Yrral
Ebisen,that sounds like what a White Supremacists might say,in America their is no rule of assimilation in America, because their is no dominant culture in America
wallace
In the United States, the dominant culture is that of white, middle-class, Protestant people of northern European descent. There are more white people here than African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, or Native Americans, and there are more middle-class people than there are rich or poor people.
Yrral
Wallace,their is probably 5 times more poor White,than some total of all minority,their are more non believing White that do not believe in a god, minority will be majority in the future,say 20 years from now,it obviously you have not lived in America for awhile
Lucky Day
Welcome to Japan, A place far better than the places most people come from, enjoy it. If life in Japan conflicts with the religious values of your homeland and your beliefs go home and as for the person who mentioned he feels good about seeing someone from another country at the stores, why??? they don't speak English and there learning Japanese so as in MacDonalds I never order from them. they always mess it up
Laguna
Made my day! It's Sunday - I'll go back to sleep.
shogun36
being forced to buy seasonal products from their own store like ehomaki sushi rolls and Christmas cakes.
▼
Lucky Day
Japan should closes their doors to people who come here that try an impose their religious values. I think living like a Shinto and dying as a Buddhist is confusing enough
Yrral
Tokyoliving,Most Japanese have to work on Christmas, while Gaijin are stuffing their face with Turkey,Ham,Pies and Liquor and eat drinking and being Merry
katsudon
What's next? Car dealerships making their sales staff buy cars if they can't sell them? Even though they don't have a drivers license?
Rakuraku
« Japan should closes their doors to people who come here that try an impose their religious values. I think living like a Shinto and dying as a Buddhist is confusing enough »
The primary problem is not the religious question but being forced to buy something. This is illegal and both foreign and local staff of these combini chains are victims. And I write chains because 7 /11 and Familly Mart probably do the same to their employees (a contributor above said 7/11 was doing the same).
Yubaru
Just doing it because it is "dento-teki" 伝統的な、or traditional is not cultural, and I think you have the two mixed up with one another.
What they had to put up with is not "cultural" but traditional, big difference!
Realistic
It's so un-Lawfull, law-son!
I will now choose more foreign friendly 7-11.
oyatoi
When you point this out that so many here are ticking time bombs, stewing with anger issues, the usual wumao suspects will deny the reality that’s staring them in the face. Fortunately, there are Japanese who haven’t swallowed the Kool Aid and will call it out as it is.
https://ja.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/クール=エイドを飲む
Blacklabel
This is Japan. They cause a fuss about this, they get replaced with a self checkout kiosk.
nothing going to change.
Mocheake
Better in some ways, and, as this story clearly shows, also worse in others. People have a right to expect respectful treatment regardless of where they come from, what language they speak, etc. Japan is not above any other nation and companies here should be tolerant and respectful and treat all fairly as best as possible.
wtfjapan
I stopped using 7/11 they day they stopped giving free wifi, now i just go there for the ATM. If a company is too fudging stingy to offer free wifi ill just go someplace else, Lawson Familymart still offer it even my local cityhall and Mcdonalds. when I buy a sandwich or snack I want to relax and surf the internet without having to be screwed over by my phone carrier.
William77
What a backward and uncivilized country still living in some degrees in their feudal era.
It took already twice for us westerner to bring them back in line with the same level of us.
Once during the meiji era when we civilized them,and a second time after WW2.
Maybe it’s time to give them some civilization again.
P.S.
And for you japanophiles or Japanese posting here telling that if foreigns don’t like it they should go home I say don’t worry.
Already less than 2% of the population is made by foreigners and from within this 2% only 10% or less is westerner.
So don’t worry,the great majority of us have little no non interest in living in your remote arcipelago.
CasualBrowser
The article doesn't say if the clerk's contracts require them to meet sales targets or if the store owner simply pressures them into purchasing unsold items. Convenience store clerks are not actually salespeople responsible for 'selling' in the sales and marketing sense of the word. The stores rely on the goods to sell themselves, supported by marketing materials. Sales and marketing activity is handled by the store owners' decision-making about what to stock, and the support received from the franchisor and its suppliers. The clerk's responsibilities are mainly confined to operating the cash registers, restocking shelves, providing some security, and cleaning. This is just as well because convenience stores have enough difficulty hiring people who can handle these basic tasks, let alone those who have actual selling capability. Requiring clerks to purchase items to boost sales is unfair and exploitative and the store owners who do this are being dishonest about what they can reasonably expect of their staff, foreign or native. Those that engage in such exploitative practices deserve to be taught a lesson about the need to respect employer/employee boundaries.
Mickelicious
This is common practice across Japan Inc. Woe betide a potential vendor driving a Nissan to a Honda factory or vice-versa. Similarly, there's an expectation that you'll be loyal to the brands in your company's keiretsu.
Imposing these practices on part timers is low, another manifestation of the evil that sees parallel cohorts of workers doing (basically) the same work for obscenely different rewards and benefits.
rcch
… the usual bunch barking the same old cr-p.
for them this is not about improving work conditions/outdated work culture; it never was. It’s something else. ;you know what it is.
EvilBuddha
some people here might be oblivious to the inherent wrongness of making a Muslim or Hindu buy a Christmas cake.
Hindus in most cases have no problems in eating Christmas cakes. There is no religious doctrine among Hindus that prohibits them from celebrating another religions beliefs.
The issue for the uninitiated is that cakes are made of eggs and many (but not all) Hindus don’t eat non vegetarian food. Some are fine with eggs but don’t consume chicken and meat, and some don’t even consume eggs. So for these folks there are special eggless cakes which they can relish on Christmas.
藤原
Japanese people would just silently take it and bottle up their anger, but foreigners band together and demand better. Good for them!
You mean the Japanese people of today.
On August 12 th 1918 the over a price increase in rice in the city of Nagoya, 130000 people took part in riots over the price increase, a complete different people than the grin and bare it Japanese of today. The sprit of this breed of Japanese needs to be rekindled!
kohakuebisu
It's twenty five years ago, but the father of my ex worked for Matsushita (National/Panasonic) and he was forced to buy stuff from them with his bonus money. They had a large and very expensive heated carpet in their house and told me that was the reason. The dodgy English school I worked for when I first came to Japan would also pressure staff into buying lessons to meet sales targets.
As Mickelicious skilfully points out, it may be one thing to expect seishain with lifetime employment to support the company they work for, but we are talking part time staff at Lawson here. I may be wrong, but I suspect what is happening here is the franchise owner has excessively ordered in these seasonal products and is on the hook for not selling them. To limit their personal loss, they have dumped them on the staff. If Lawson is forcing the cakes onto branches and tacitly approving of franchisees dumping them on staff, then the whole chain should be boycotted.
Chico3
2 things I see with this. 1. From the management side, they are part-time and if they wanted to work there, they should know about they’re job. 2. From the employees’ side, if they HAVE to or FORCED to buy certain things, then their employers have to give them the money for that. What employees do with their money is their business. It kind of reminds me of one eikaiwa where we were “suggested” to get year end gifts from our company supported companies. We told our manager, “If you can give us the extra money for that purpose, then maybe so. Otherwise, like you, we also have to pay bills and earn a living.” Fortunately, we reported this to our union, and our manager never brought this up again.
kurisupisu
…
Yes, I am
Please explain it then?
Pukey2
These Muslim and Hindu workers aren't here to spread their religion. They're here to work. They just don't want to be forced to buy something they don't want.
One of my relatives back home works in a bakery. Come Saturday late afternoon, before the day the shop closes, they're not forced to buy anything, but the staff can get access to a lot of bread and cakes for half price.
It helps that the boss is generous!
kurisupisu
Maybe they would like to have stayed in their own countries earning a larger pittance than they receive here?
didou
When working for a company that sells goods, this is normal to buy some products of this company (ex, if working for Apple but buying phones from the rival Samsung to boost Samsung sales. something is not logical), But forcing to buy is another issue. I have heard companies, specially electronic makers ask/force their employees to buy goods, but this is for the upper management. I do not think staff are forced (rather urged). I suppose companies provide interesting discounts.
Chibakun
Were they told beforehand that if they didn't sell the quota they would have to buy it?
kurisupisu
Before coming to Japan a ffive minute internet search would show what Japan is like-just let your countryfolk back home know the truth!
wallace
Owners of Lawson stores can just return unsold items.
Paul14
I understand now why the non Japanese employees at my local Lawson always seem so sad. What a disgrace Lawson is doing this to people probably only earning minimum wage, and probably having a family abroad depending upon them too. Shame on Lawson!
JeffLee
Maybe their corporate employers could have hired exclusive in Japan and pay first-wage wages, instead of choosing to recruit people from the third world so they can pay pittance-level in wages?
Khuniri
Not so long ago, there were no non-Japanese retail clerks. Whenever I make a convenience-store purchase and note that the person ringing it up has a non-Yamato-minzoku name, I want to say encouragingly; 日本で頑張って下さい。Why must so many articles of this kind dwell on the negative? The good news is that Japan is facing up to the fact that it now has immigrants. (I just hope that it has better sense than some other countries one might mention.) I find this story quite fishy...
Mickelicious
Nothing generous about it. It's pig feed otherwise.
Do they have unconditional sale-or-return, though?
I very much doubt that in the convenience sector.
Peter Neil
The franchise owners are responsible and just being greedy. Konbini franchises don’t make as much money as some people may think. Owners bought a middle income (or less) job.
For customers, Japanese konbini’s are wonderful. Western convenience stores are no match for cleanliness, variety, freshness of food, prices or staff competence and friendliness. Beware of turning konbini’s into convenience stores.
lovelytime
apparently nobody in the comments actually lives here. they’re all franchises.
JTC
They get paid low wages, and then are being forced to buy products from their own store, products that they don't even want ????? That is totally wrong. Shame on those Lawson stores.
Peter14
Such a policy would be illegal in Australia and the company concerned would be required to refund money and would face huge fines for their actions.
I find it hard to accept that such behavior is actually legal in Japan. It makes no sense at all.
JTC
@Hakman - Imagine the conversation
Employee: "WTF do I want to buy a Christmas cake for, I don't Celebrate that and neither do my Friends or Family!"
Manager: "Don't care, buy it or we dock your pay, or you can quit"
It's a "Power trip" for the Manager. I've seen a lot of this Power-trip type of thing, not in Convenience Stores though, but elsewhere here in Corporate Japan. I wonder if Employees of Sony are prohibited from buying anything made by Toshiba ? Or Toyota Employees can't buy BMWs ?
I agree with Peter14, that this type of scam, should be banned within Japan by Law.
oyatoi
While it may be obnoxious to you, it’s like this all the way down. Those at the top get away with, nay, are expected to enact measures to thwart and prevent foreign trade competition. Firms thinking they can micromanage their employees purchase decisions is entirely consistent with such market distortion. Fairness, reciprocity, a level playing field; quaint ideas championed by deluded foreigners badly in need of a reality check.
Dirk T
Immigrants to Japan will forever be locked into convenience store-level jobs. There is no escape for them, no upward mobility. The Japanese government would never allow an entire class of immigrants to make good because it would threaten the power structure.
Tell_me_bout_it
Yeah mate, it's like me making you eat a damn cheese when you are lactose intolerant.
If I didnt know about lactose intolerance, I would be like "yeah, so what? Cheese aint no lactose."
But someone with common sense knows that it damn is.
mtuffizi
unbelievable! awful way to tell employees how to spend their own money.
japan need to set up good labor laws to protect employees.
sunfunbun
More often than not, the Japanese will know something must be protested at work, but when push comes to shove, they bail to the safety of having a job and the company gets fewer complaints from employees than they should. It's a bit of brainwashing the Japanese for company strength, and that strength becomes quite a stranglehold on them.
So, I'm glad to see foreign workers speaking up about what is an absurd policy from Lawson's, but typically, one where the Japanese know is not right, but they will ultimately side with Lawson and castigate the foreign workers behind their backs, as a likely scenario. It's not a pleasant thought to say they are cowards, but I've seen it first hand happen to myself.
Some Japanese workers are with you, say they will support your cause, until you actually speak up to management, and then they disappear. It's quite pathetic to see people not have clarity to do the right thing, but the murky gray exists.
Thomas Twatt
At most 'English Schools' (sic) I've seen in Japan, the staff could do with some English lessons - particularly the 'teachers'!
TT
Dirk T
@Kniknaknokkaer, in what way is it "complete nonsense?"
kaimycahl
@virusrex Its not sad foreign or Japanese citizen have a CHOICE they can either take the job or move on. In most cases, Japanese citizens did or simply was replaced. Yes, it is a problem the Employers perhaps didn't want to pay JAPANESE citizens a fair wage and hired the immigrants which in term lowered the wages and the quality of life and perhaps services. The immigrants where taken advantage of by the employer and used as pawns to low balled the average Japanese citizen who could have fought for higher wages but couldn't because the employer knew they could hire an immigrant for less. I agree, perhaps the Japanese employees were subjected to same abuse but I would think it was the threat of competing for a job with an immigrant whom the employer knew he or she could pay a lessor wage. Once the immigrants worked in these positions perhaps they realized what the Japanese were going through and now they are trying to protest for those same changes. The problems aren't knew, they existed with Japanese employees the only difference this time the employers can't use one against the other, they have to face the protest.
It is sad that foreign employees were the first to denounce these unfair practices, it is quite obvious the japanese employees are also subjected to the same abuses, and would have every right to protest and demand a change.
ushosh123
The right to not be punished by your employer based on a quota system seems like a pretty basic right.
Perhaps these seasonal items are generally the ones with highest variance in demand and they just spoil faster than other items. And in the absence of a minimum, franchisees would choose to buy none.
CKAI
No kiddin. Where'd all the REAL citizens go??