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While Japan's amateur sports have been beset by several recent scandals involving "power harassment," J-Cast News (Sept 17) reports that "UA Zenzen," a federation of labor unions in the textile, chemical and food service industries, announced the findings of its survey on "claimer harassment" earlier in September.
Roughly 75% of the survey respondents, covering 30,000 workers in such areas as food and beverage services, taxi firms, hospitals and others, said they had been the recipient of "malicious claims." Of these, more than 90% said they were made to feel stress. The survey also found that malicious claimers had even gone so far to denounce them on the internet, and some are requesting their employers to take protective action.
Among the respondents, 39% also said that these sorts of malicious claims had been increasing of late, as opposed to 33% of those who said they had not observed any appreciable change.
With multiple replies given, the most common form of complaint, mentioned by about 25% of respondents, was "abusive language." This was followed by "intimidation or threats" (21%) and "complaints about the same thing repeated over and over" (15%). The abuse extended to "acts sexual harassment" (in 6% of cases), followed by "acts of violence" (4%) and demands that the worker kneel and kowtow deeply in apology (2%).
Some 56% of the survey respondents said the treatment made them feel "deep stress," and including the others, over 90% said they felt stress to some degree. More than 1% said they felt it caused them to suffer mental illness.
When asked how they responded to their abusive customers, the most common reply, with 36%, was that the "continued to apologize." About 5% said "There was nothing I could do." Another 24% of the subjects nonetheless said they kept a stiff upper lip and remained "resolute" in dealing with the customer.
In reporting the results of the UA Zenzen survey, the internet edition of the Sankei Shimbun ran such sample tweets from Twitter as the following:
"Middle-aged men threatened me with a loud voices. So do the elderly."
"I often witness malicious claimers. They shout persistently."
One tweet advised, "Management understands the difficulties their staff are going through, and the most effective way to deal with [claimers] is to stand one's ground."
The writer of the report issued by UA Zenzen also noted, "We absolutely do not view all claims as problematic," pointing out that "in many cases, the criticisms companies receive contributes to future development.
"However we would like to discourage and eliminate overreactions that transcend common sense."
In an effort to seek solutions to the problem of malicious claims, Akihiko Matsuura, chairman of UA Zenzen, on Aug 10 hand-delivered a petition with 1,765,000 signatures to Health, Labor and Welfare Minister Katsunobu Kato.
The Health ministry has formed a group to mull policies for malicious customer claims, which may be brought under the same measures being considered for preventing on-the-job power harassment in the workplace. While recognizing that there similarities exist between the two, the ministry also favorably noted the suggestion that adoption of the term "claimer harassment" (by that specific designation) may permeate society and lead to more effective solutions.
© Japan Today
10 Comments
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katsu78
This is an utterly, utterly meaningless expression that does nothing to clarify the manner of harassment received. Indeed, as the article shows us, it serves no purpose beyond trying to put a wide variety of behaviors, some admittedly immoral and some potentially justified, into the same box on the basis of who is doing it.
I'm sure Japanese already has a perfectly adequate expression for this usage of dubious value. There is no need to mangle English for it.
1glenn
I was so very happy to finally get a job where I didn't have to interact with the public. While most people are wonderful, the occasional pathological troublemakers can ruin one's day.
gogogo
You mess up you get yelled at... you really mess up expect to bow. While these don't cover all cases, it seems people need thicker skin.
commanteer
The article specifically mentions restaurant workers and taxi drivers, typically workers on the low end of the totem pole. My days as a waiter taught me that there are a lot of major jerks out there suffering from microphalia , and who feel the need to act out their insecurities by abusing wait staff who are in no good position to fight back.
The ideal solution would be for the employers to support their staff, but this is not often the case. If a worker makes a mistake, they should apologize. But the customer has an obligation (as a human being) not to be abusive as well. People will make a huge deal out of the most trivial things. They really believe spending a few dollars should make them an emperor.
Mocheake
The word you are seeking is not "claimer", it's complainer. People get verbally abused everywhere and sometimes they have it coming because of their own ineptitude or common mistakes. Suck it up.
blvtzpk
@ Mocheake
Actually all of Japan is seeking the word ‘complain’ or ‘complainer’ when they use ‘claim’ or ‘claimer.’
‘Claim’ is one Japanese English word that really gets under my skin.
katsu78
Exactly, and that's why I loathe this expression: it is formulated to frame a problem around who is doing the behavior, not whether or not the behavior crosses from valid complaint to harassment. Is the customer engaging in justified complaints because they can't get the product or service they paid for? Are they being verbally abusive? Are they making threats or unwanted sexual comments? Are they trying to blackmail the staff? Or did they just say something a little mean because they didn't get their way? Who cares! By lumping all these behaviors together under "claimer harassment", you'll never have to make a judgment that requires thought or empathy again! Just keep chanting "kureima- hara" and all you'll need to know is that if the customer does something you don't like, it must be bad.
NCIS Reruns
Last week at Narita I wanted a snack before boarding so I made the mistake of going to Bagel & Bagel. There was a foreign female airline crew member in front of me who kept mixing her order --- asking for separate items instead of picking up the prepackaged sandwich sets they offered, and when the Japanese employee had trouble understanding English the customer had to repeat the order s_l_o_w_l_y three times. Then for her order of less than 1,000 yen she insisted on paying with a credit card!! The whole transaction took at least six minutes and meanwhile the line behind me was getting longer and longer because of this inconsiderate idiot.
I wasn't rude but I explained to the Japanese woman at the counter that I had to cancel my drink (which I had already picked) because I'd run out of time and wasn't able to carry liquids into the boarding area. (But my real objective was to be overheard by that foreign crew member --- although she wouldn't have understood what I said.)
I'll probably phone Bagel2's HQ to complain about the agonizingly slow service of their erstwhile "fast" food counter. The tiny store only has three middle-aged female workers and at the very least they should require cash payment for orders under 2,000 yen.