A 54-year-old Korean national was arrested early Friday morning here on charges of murdering his employer, local police revealed.
At around 2:50 a.m. on Friday, Fukuichi Miyoshi, 61, the head of a bag-manufacturing factory based in Osaka Prefecture’s Higashiosaka City, was attacked with a hammer while watching TV in his dorm room, based on the company’s premises. The attacker, identified as Yonboku Kim, called police himself, saying he “murdered the company head.”
According to police, Kim was an employee of the company and was living in the same dormitory. He was quoted by police as saying that he had “major concerns” about his employment conditions and wanted to murder Miyoshi.
© Japan Today
24 Comments
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Lockke
while i condone his actions and hope he gets what he deserves, I'd like to have them check that workplace the dude was running. He probably employs overseas workers, provides them visa and treats them like a slave here.. in which, would have a more clearer picture as to what drove the dude to murder his boss.
Not saying its valid to murder someone who does that kind of stuff.. but there are a lot of people here who do that. Especially to factory workers, etc..
Himajin
Maybe Lockke meant 'while I don't condone his actions'...
sighclops
@commanteer
Neither of which will get you anywhere in Japan I'm afraid :/
Lockke
sorry, yes, i meant i dont condone his actions! not a native english speaker.. but you guys get my point ;)
SenseNotSoCommon
Perhaps Kim was an overstayer who had no alternative but to work black for a boss he literally couldn't escape from, sleeping in the same dormitory.
I doubt we'll hear any more about this, but I'd love some detail of the employment conditions he had major concerns about.
DannytheGaijin
The Labor Standards Bureau must be sitting on there hands. The working conditions there must be especially deplorable if it drove a man to murder.
goldorak
Having to live at my employer's dormitory is on the long list of work related experiences I hope I'll never have to go through.
GW
goldorak,
Indeed ESPECIALLY if the big boss man also LIVES there........... chances are pretty much nil that that is a healthy situation to be in, but we will likely never know as these kinds of articles typically never have much context in them or any real follow up
wtfjapan
ive seen first hand of workers that have been exploited, 6 sometimes 7 days days a week 12hrs a day, crap pay. basically slaves with no future
Aly Rustom
You'll hear about how a foreigner killed his Japanese boss. That's all the useless Japanese media will tell us..
And the above is the reason why.
theeastisred
'condone'? or 'condemn'
Also, impossible to tell from this whether he was a zainichi Korean or a regular Korean. I guess the former, given the 'Korean national' description. If so it seems unnecessary to mention nationality at all.
nath
Stop... Hammer time!
ThePBot
Yes, it sounds like he was being exploited in his workplace. That being said, you just can't justify his actions. If he was constantly physically harmed in his workplace, I might reconsider.
EyeOfTheCat
Looks like a pay rise is not going to happen. For two reasons.
Japan T
Will he get the same very light sentence that female boss got a little while ago for killing her employee, I wonder?
sangetsu03
Been there, done that, I know all about it. I have had bosses and jobs which I have hated. And in these cases, I simply quit. It was remarkably easy to do. I simply said "I don't like working here, and I am not coming in any more, I'll pick up my check next week." That was all there was too it. I never thought about beating one of these nasty bosses to death with a hammer.
And as bad as 7 day weeks, and long hours can be, I eventually became a boss myself. I then learned that no days off and long hours were the normal life of being the boss. On the positive side, I can pay myself more.
In Japan people have murdered other people over the feeding of stray cats, having beer spilled on their shoes, stealing a 200 yen umbrella, or sillier reasons. Hardly the things we would believe would drive people to murder, but some people have very short fuses.
This is very likely the case. But it is no justification for murder.
roosterman77
@Erin Loydi. I'm not having a go at you but I'm curious to know where we draw the line in regards to making jokes about murder. I'm sure we wouldn't joke about a family member or someone we know being murdered. I've made remarks in the past and then thought "would I have said that if it were a different person?" Sorry, I just think it's a curious thing we do.
Nessie
The proverbial man with a hammer.
wontond
Oldboy
coskuri
Impossible to doubt. Higashi-Osaka leather-Korean-town is Zainichi-burakumin,
I agree that are cheap journalists that try to suggest everything thing is a nihonjin-ethnic or local-migrant issue.... Both men are from the same community (that has no more criminality than average of Japan). .
They usually stick to hiring people whose families are already in the industry, people from the neighbourhood. These days they are not known for giving bad conditions to their workers ( that are probably better off than mainstream J-workers). But, regardless of general condition in a company, if you are supervised by a bully, your conditions are terrible.
DaDude
There has gotta be some influence of Oldboy in this crime. A Korean man attacks with a hammer. I never seen the movie but know the cover and seen the trailers.
Disillusioned
Well, it seems his labor negotiations have failed. I wonder what sort of job he will get in prison.
commanteer
I always wonder about the thought process (if there is any) that goes on in the heads of these kinds of murderers. "Gee, I'm really unhappy with my employment conditions. Should I demand better conditions, file a labor dispute, quit... or just bludgeon my boss to death with a hammer and spend the rest of my life in prison?"
A no brainer!