A few days ago, Nissan's "bullying of subcontractors" was revealed.
An order was issued for Nissan to return 3 billion yen in damages caused by unfair price cutting.
Of course, this was just the tip of the iceberg, and the fact that the Fair Trade Commission issued the order was groundbreaking.
Nissan once enjoyed a V-shaped recovery in business performance with Carlos Ghosn at the helm.
But even at that time, there were rumors that this was due to the fact that Carlos Ghosn had made his subcontractors cry and cut off their business.
Everyone remembers well that Carlos Ghosn was a thief of the highest order, and that Nissan suffered huge losses.
His huge remuneration and lavish spending were based on the misery of small and medium-sized affiliated companies and subcontract factories.
Demands for price reductions of 20% to 30% were commonplace, and some even demanded reductions of as much as half the price.
But this is nothing new.
It is not limited to the automobile industry, but extends to various industries in Japan, and is said to be half common knowledge.
A year and a half ago, the father of the heroine in NHK's morning drama "Soaring" was the president of a small screw factory in Higashi Osaka.
He collapsed and died of heartache after being extensively haggled and bullied by the parent company.
This kind of thing has been so common since the industrialization of Japan that no one, not even the mass media, has taken the issue head-on.
I am sure that countless presidents have gone bankrupt or committed suicide at their local factories.
Large companies have now been forced to raise wages through a public-private campaign, so they have offered up the funds from their secretly accumulated wealth, thinking that they have no choice.
But the overwhelming majority of small, medium, and micro enterprises will never be able to do the same.
Sooner or later, "wage hike bankruptcy" will become a reality, and this will surely become a new social problem.
This will again put a damper on the realization of higher wages for Japan's workers, and the gap between Japan and the rest of the world will widen once again.
Bullying is a constant in Japanese education and shows no signs of improving.
But that is to be expected.
Adult society itself is a bullying structure.
And it is unlikely that it will ever be solved or eliminated.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)