According to a survey, one in two Japanese service workers experienced damage to their customers’ power abuse.
NHK announced on the 30th that 46.8% of the service members of UA Jensen, Japan’s largest industrial union, said they had “experienced the victim’s overuse of power within two years.” The results were based on an online survey of union members until March this year on the so-called “Kashara,” which analyzed the responses received from a total of 33,000 people. Kashara (カスハラ) is an abbreviation of Japanese English (Castama Harasmento, カスタマ, ハラスメント) for customer harassment.
In the survey four years ago, 56.7% of respondents responded, down nearly 10 percentage points this time, but nearly half still complain of damage.
The most memorable types of power abuse were “rude talk” (39.8 percent), followed by “threat and intimidation (14.7 percent), “repeated complaints (13.8 percent),” and “long-term harassment (11.1 percent).” When asked why Kasuhara had such an impact, 26.7 percent said they had complaints, while 19.3 percent said they had “mistake in providing hospitality and services.” 15.1 percent said they had consumers’ misconceptions. Masayuki Kiriu, a professor at Toyo University, said, “The number of damages may have decreased due to the widespread awareness that Kasuhara is bad, but we need to reduce it further.” He also stressed, “It is important for businesses and companies to specify the Kasuhara line because there are people who do not have awareness of the nuisance, thinking that it is ‘my teaching’.” The results of the survey will be officially announced at the end of May.
As the overuse of power by customers has emerged as a serious social problem, some places are trying to protect their employees. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government is the first local government to enact an ordinance to prevent Kasuhara. It is known that the ordinance will stipulate corporate responsibilities to protect employees from overuse of power, and provide specific examples of prohibited acts separately. Recently, in Japan, more people quit their jobs because they could not endure bullying such as verbal abuse by customers, and some people committed suicide due to depression. In Tokyo, where there are many service workers compared to other cities, voices calling for stricter measures are spreading mainly among labor unions. JR East, a Japanese railway company, also recently created a separate response guideline to cope with Kasuhara for flight attendants and station workers. The government plans to strictly deal with acts that are considered malicious or harmful with the help of police or lawyers.
People who learn how to control their anger in order not to become the perpetrator of Kasuhara also attract attention. Psychological counselor Sonoko Yoshimura’s “Anger Management” course in Tokyo has attracted more than 140 people since its opening last year. Organizers say that more people are taking classes to “change themselves who continue to act like a customer’s boss.” In this class, they simulate how they control their emotions by assuming major situations in which participants may feel unpleasant.
People in service jobs are also people. Each company should educate service workers on how to respond. It should not be educated unconditionally for customers.
SOPHIA KIM
US ASIA JOURNAL
