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 At about 6:30 that morning, Ichiro Takahara, a Japanese union
organizer, rolled up outside the dormitory where the women lived. Lu
Xindi, Qian Juan and Jiang Cheng were waiting - they had been
secretly plotting this move for months. Takahara drove them to a
convenience store and then to the local labor standards office.
The story behind their flight began three years earlier and more
than 900 miles (1,440 km) away in eastern China's Jiangsu province.
There, they signed up with a labor export company to work in Japan's
"foreign technical intern" program, which Tokyo insists is designed
to help workers from developing countries learn advanced technical
skills.
In a lawsuit filed in a Japanese court, Lu, Qian and Jiang claim
that rather than training them, Kameda forced them to work excessive
hours at below minimum wage. In 2011, their busiest year, the women
were working 16 hours a day, six days a week, with 15 minutes for
lunch, according to the lawsuit and work records. For that, they
were paid around $4 per hour, according to records reviewed by
Reuters.
Other former interns have made similar allegations in dozens of
lawsuits filed in Japan. Their case stands out because during the
time Lu, Qian and Jiang were working there, Kameda was putting
pleats in Burberry BRBY.L clothes.
Japan is a key market for the British luxury brand, generating 12.8
percent of Burberry's pre-tax profit, or around 55 million pounds
($92.5 million), in the year to March 31, 2013.
The profits came from licensing arrangements, some of which date
back decades. Today, Burberry maintains licensing arrangements with
four Japanese companies. The largest of these is with apparel
manufacturer and retailer Sanyo Shokai, a relationship that began in
1970. Though most of what Burberry produces in Japan is sold there,
factories in Japan also supply two stores in Hong Kong that sell the
Burberry Blue and Burberry Black lines. Kameda was putting pleats in
shirts and skirts sold by Sanyo Shokai under the Burberry Black
line.
Burberry declined to allow Reuters to speak to any executives
directly about the Kameda case. Through a public relations agency,
it issued a statement saying Burberry had asked Sanyo Shokai to
terminate its relationship with Kameda in late 2012 because Kameda
was not complying with Burberry's ethical standards.
Among Kameda's other clients at this time were some of Japan's
largest trading houses: Itochu 8001.T and Mitsui Bussan
Inter-Fashion (MIF), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Mitsui & Co
8031.T. Mitsui said it was unaware of the lawsuit until Reuters
contacted the company for comment; MIF said it would monitor the
lawsuit and then decide about the company's relationship with
Kameda. Itochu said it was not aware that Kameda employed foreign
technical interns.
Kameda's website lists department store Isetan 3099.T as a client. A
spokesman for the retailer, now known as Mitsukoshi Isetan, said
that it has only been buying women's apparel from Kameda since
January.
The most recent government data show there are about 155,000
technical interns in Japan. Nearly 70 percent are from China, where
some labor recruiters require payment of bonds worth thousands of
dollars to work in Japan. Interns toil in apparel and food
factories, on farms and in metal-working shops. In these workplaces,
labor abuse is endemic: A 2012 investigation by Japanese labor
inspectors found 79 percent of companies that employed interns were
violating labor laws. The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare
said it would use strict measures, including prosecution, toward
groups that repeatedly violated the laws or failed to follow its
guidance in their treatment of technical interns.
 Critics say foreign interns have become an exploited source of cheap
labor in a country where, despite having the world's most rapidly
ageing population, discussion of increased immigration is taboo. The
U.S. State Department, in its 2013 Trafficking in Persons report,
criticized the program's use of "extortionate contracts",
restrictions on interns' movements, and the imposition of heavy fees
if workers leave.
Japan faces a worsening labor shortage, not only in family-run farms
and factories such as Kameda but in construction and service
industries. It is a major reason that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's
administration is planning a further expansion of the trainee
program.
TRAINEES, NOT WORKERS
Lu, Qian and Jiang arrived in Osaka by boat on Nov. 19, 2009. Lu was
30, Qian 28, and Jiang just 19.
The women had signed up to work in Japan with a labor export company
in the city of Haimen, not far from Shanghai, called Haimen
Corporation for Foreign Economic & Technical Cooperation.
A woman at the company's office who gave her name as Chen confirmed
that the company sent workers to Japan to work in apparel factories.
But she declined to discuss the Kameda case, or even confirm that
the company had sent Lu, Qian and Jiang to Japan.
The Haimen firm then signed an agreement with Shanghai SFECO
International Business Service, a subsidiary of state-owned company
China SFECO Group, according to Guan Xiaojun, head of the Japan
trainee department. Shanghai SFECO signed a contract with the
Ishikawa Apparel Association and sent Lu, Qian and Jiang to Japan.
Guan said Lu, Qian and Jiang probably paid about RMB30,000, or more
than $4,800, in "service fees", as well as a separate fee of
RMB4,550 that would be returned to the women after three years as
long as they did not violate Japanese law. Asked about the
accusations in the lawsuit, Guan said her company had only
dispatched the workers. "Labor disputes have nothing to do with us,"
she said.
The rules of the program specified that Lu, Qian and Jiang's first
year in Japan was to be devoted to training. Japanese law bars
employing foreigners as unskilled laborers. But quietly, the country
has been bringing in foreigners since at least the 1980s, originally
to train staff of companies with operations overseas. The practice
was formalized as the technical intern program in 1993.
 The women received 18 days of Japanese language training in Osaka.
Then, the Ishikawa Apparel Association put them on a bus for the
drive to Kameda, said their lawyer, Shingo Moro.
Kameda specializes in making pleats. It had relied on foreign
interns for about a decade because it couldn't find enough workers
in Japan, Yoshihiko Kameda, its president, told Reuters.
The conditions the lawsuit describes are a world apart from the
clean, efficient image Japan projects to the world, and a far cry
from the quintessentially British reputation on which Burberry
trades.
Not long after their arrival, the apparel association took the
women's passports and passed them to Kameda in violation of Japanese
law protecting interns' freedom of movement, according to the
lawsuit. An Ishikawa Apparel Association spokeswoman, who declined
to give her name, said the group does not conduct inappropriate
supervision and training, but declined further comment citing the
lawsuit.
At the factory, Lu, Qian and Jiang's overtime stretched to more than
100 hours a month, the lawsuit says. A timesheet prepared with data
supplied by Kameda to the Japanese labor standards bureau shows Lu
logged an average of 208 hours a month doing overtime and "homework"
during her second year in Japan. That is equivalent to almost 16
hours a day, six days a week. Japanese labor policy considers 80
hours of overtime a month the "death by overwork" threshold.
For this, Lu earned about 400 yen, about $4, an hour at Kameda, the
timesheet shows. The local minimum wage at the time was 691 yen an
hour, and Japanese law requires a premium of as much as 50 percent
of the base wage for overtime.
In addition, during lunch breaks and after work, the women were
asked to do "homework". For this, they were paid by the piece,
rather than by the hour.
At night, Lu, Qian and Jiang slept in an old factory building, their
lawyer says. To catch rats, Kameda brought in a cat, which brought
fleas. Lu and Qian suffered so many flea bites they developed skin
conditions, the lawsuit says. Evidence compiled for the lawsuit
shows the women's legs covered in bites.
REHEARSING THE INSPECTION
Like Lu, Qian and Jiang, most interns come through a program
supported by the Japan International Training Cooperation
Organization (JITCO), a foundation funded by the Japanese government
and member groups. JITCO is also tasked with ensuring its members'
internship programs are properly run.
Kameda's factory is in Hakusan, an industrial town of about 100,000
people on Japan’s west coast, a center for Japan's once booming
apparel industry. That industry has largely been reduced to
family-run factories, such as Kameda's, which mostly do small orders
with quick turnarounds at low margins. Around the Kameda factory are
several others that employ foreign trainees from China and Southeast
Asia.
In November 2011, Kameda told the interns the plant was going to be
inspected by JITCO, according to testimony the women gave Takahara's
activist group. The inspection came after four Chinese interns at a
nearby apparel factory - also a member of the Ishikawa Apparel
Association - fled to Takahara's shelter and filed a complaint about
labor issues.
 Kameda, who lives in a large house with a manicured Japanese garden
opposite the factory where he used to house the women, tried to hide
their working conditions from JITCO inspectors. Kameda threatened to
send them back to China if they didn't do as they were told,
according to their testimony.
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The day before the inspector arrived, Kameda gave Lu, Qian and Jiang
fake payslips, according to their testimony. Together with an
interpreter and a representative from the apparel association,
Kameda told them how to respond to questions from the inspector.
They rehearsed their answers twice. The next day, when the inspector
asked them if they still had their passports, the women knew to say
that they did.
JITCO declined to comment on the Kameda case.
Asked about alleged abuses in the program, JITCO said in a statement
that it will continue to provide legal protection for interns. JITCO
will also help supervising organizations adhere to immigration and
labor laws and regulations "by providing all kinds of advice, and
through public relations such as seminars and teaching materials".
In the interview with Reuters, Kameda said the interns approached
him about how they should respond to the JITCO inspection several
times. He denied coaching or threatening to send them home if they
did not answer as instructed. But he acknowledged telling Lu, Qian
and Jiang that they might be sent home, as workers at the nearby
factory had been.
He also recalled telling the workers their overtime - which he said
exceeded 100 hours a month at that time - might be a problem for the
JITCO inspector. In fact, JITCO even warned him the interns were
working too much overtime, Kameda said. Asked about this inspection,
JITCO said it would not comment on individual cases. Kameda
acknowledged keeping some of his workers' passports, but said it was
at their request. He said the women sometimes worked 100 hours of
overtime a month and may have put in as many as 173 hours.
Kameda also said he initially paid them less than the legal wage.
But he insisted the underpayment was the result of an administrative
error. The additional hours and homework, he said, were provided at
the women's behest. Kameda warned the workers that the hours they
were working were longer than Japanese labor law allowed, but the
workers expressed a "strong desire" to continue working long hours,
he told Reuters.
No one from the Ishikawa Apparel Association visited Kameda prior to
a JITCO inspection, the apparel group's spokeswoman said. She said
she was not aware of any use of falsified payslips, or of any
coaching of Kameda interns. She confirmed that the interns had
complained to the association about their housing. The association,
she said, asked Kameda to respond to the interns' concerns.
Lu, Qian and Jiang, who have since returned to China, declined
requests for an interview. Interns who have sued their former
Japanese employers can face difficulties upon returning home,
including intimidation, lawsuits and penalties from the Chinese
companies who sent them to Japan - and also pressure from family
members ashamed of their problems overseas.
THE UNDOING
The women complained several times to Kameda about their living
conditions, labor organizer Takahara says, but nothing changed until
they complained to the Ishikawa Apparel Association. After the group
passed on this complaint, Kameda moved the women into temporary
housing while he cleaned the converted factory where they slept. It
was two months before they could move back into the factory,
according to Takahara.
Around August 2012, the workers reached out to Takahara's group.
Could he help the workers negotiate a settlement like the one the
Chinese interns received at the nearby apparel factory? Through a
colleague who spoke Chinese, Takahara told them they would not be
able to continue to work after they filed their complaint. He
advised the interns to keep working and collect evidence. Over the
next few months, Takahara and his colleagues worked out a plan with
the Kameda interns.
Takahara, now 62, had been involved in brokering settlements for
foreign workers for more than a decade in western Japan. Over the
years, Takahara, who also works as a gardener, had worked out a
script that he followed several times a year with foreign interns
with grievances.
Because workers who complain have been forcibly deported, Takahara
and other union representatives encourage interns to fulfill their
contracts. They are meticulous in their documentation: keeping time
cards, sending faxes from convenience stores so there is a dated
record of the communication, alerting local labor inspectors before
bringing in interns to report alleged violations to make sure staff
are on hand.
 The morning of their escape, Takahara drove the women from Kameda to
a convenience store. There, they sent a fax to the factory
requesting paid holiday until Nov. 19, the day their contract
expired. Takahara then took them to the local labor standards office
to testify about their experience at the factory. The inspectors
were expecting them.
In late 2012, Kameda agreed to pay 1.3 million yen each to Lu, Qian
and Jiang. In addition, the labor standards bureau ordered Kameda to
pay 260,000 yen collectively to the three women for the “homework”
they had been required to do on a piece rate. In the end, the women
each received about 1.4 million yen, or nearly $14,000 at current
exchange rates, Takahara says.
Kameda told Reuters he paid the full amount the labor standards
bureau demanded and did everything asked of him. He blames
Takahara’s group for stirring up resentment among the workers. "They
were completely happy until they left and sued us," Kameda said.
Moro, the women's lawyer, says Kameda only paid what he owed the
women for the second and third year of their time at his factory,
and the homework settlement was not based on an accurate calculation
of the hours the women worked.
On October 9, 2013, Moro filed suit on behalf of the three Chinese
interns in a court in Kanazawa, naming Kameda and the Ishikawa
Apparel Association as defendants. The suit asks for unpaid wages,
expenses and damages for pain and suffering amounting to about 11.2
million yen, or about $109,000.
EXPANDING THE PROGRAM
It wasn't until late 2012, after Lu, Qian and Jiang had left the
factory and their complaints reported in the Mainichi newspaper,
that a Burberry executive visited Kameda. Burberry asked Sanyo
Shokai to terminate the relationship with Kameda "due to
non-compliance and a lack of cooperation in the implementation of
Burberry's ethical standards," Burberry said in its statement.
Burberry’s code of conduct, which covers licensees such as Sanyo
Shokai, prohibits homework and bans the use of bonded labor and the
payment of “deposits” to employers. It requires factories to pay at
least the national legal minimum wage and provide safe, clean
accommodation for workers. Workers should not be required to work
more than 48 hours a week or 11 hours a day, the code says. Overtime
should be both voluntary and no more than 12 hours a week; it should
not be demanded on a regular basis. Burberry also requires all
factories to make sure workers keep their "passports, ID cards, bank
cards and similar documents to facilitate their unhindered freedom
of movement".
The luxury brand only began auditing Japanese suppliers for ethical
compliance in 2009, the year Lu, Qian and Jiang arrived. Burberry's
two auditors started, according to a person familiar with the
company's activities, with the largest factories and those that
produced finished goods.
Burberry's current licensing arrangement with Sanyo Shokai and
Mitsui will expire in June 2015. Under the terms of a new license
agreement, the Burberry Blue and Black labels will continue as Blue
Label and Black Label, dropping the Burberry name. Burberry will
continue to audit the supply chain.
Today, about 37 of the approximately 270 factories that supply
Burberry branded items to licensees in Japan use foreign interns
supported by JITCO. These factories employ around 307 JITCO interns.
Burberry now offers training and access to a hotline in Chinese.
"Burberry takes the welfare of workers in all areas of its supply
chain extremely seriously," the company said in a statement to
Reuters. "In the case of foreign contract workers in particular, we
are very focused on ensuring that they operate in conditions that
adhere to the Burberry Ethical Trading Code of Conduct."
Japan strengthened protection for interns in 2010, putting them
under Japanese labor laws for all three years of their internship.
But the Japan Federation of Bar Associations, which represents more
than 30,000 attorneys, argues the intern program should be scrapped
on human rights grounds.
Kameda says his factory no longer employs foreign interns. He thinks
Japan should drop the pretense of internships and allow foreigners
to work as laborers. "Regardless of the women's requests, I regret
that I didn't do things properly," he wrote in an emailed response
to questions from Reuters. He intends to counsel partner factories
that employ interns "so what Kameda is experiencing won't happen
again."
((Additional reporting by Kevin Krolicki, James Topham and Aaron
Sheldrick in Tokyo, and the Shanghai newsroom; Editing by Bill
Tarrant))
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