The Problem Is Not a Lack of Systems
Issues surrounding foreign workers have already been widely documented.
Low wages, unpaid salaries, job misclassification, disappearances, and opaque intermediary structures are all well known.
In many discussions, these problems are explained as a consequence of “insufficient systems.”
However, this diagnosis misses the core issue.
The problem is not that systems are lacking.
It is that the order in which systems are constructed has been fundamentally mistaken.
From this perspective, Japan’s postwar labor legislation offers a crucial reference point.
The Postwar Principle: Order Matters
Japan’s postwar labor policy was not merely an economic response.
It was built upon a clear normative sequence.
First, laws such as the Labor Standards Act and the Trade Union Act established the minimum rights of workers.
Only after this baseline was secured did the government develop labor market mechanisms—
public employment services, vocational training, and policies to facilitate labor mobility.
The structure is clear:
First, define rights. Then, design the market.
This sequence reflected a fundamental principle:
labor is not merely a commodity.
The Reversal in Foreign Labor Policy
In contrast, Japan’s current foreign labor policy follows the opposite order.
Programs such as the Technical Intern Training Program and the Specified Skilled Worker Program were designed primarily to address labor shortages.
As a result:
- Protection is added only after problems emerge
- Institutional revisions are reactive rather than structural
- Core distortions remain while surface-level adjustments continue
This represents a clear inversion of the postwar model.
Why Did the Order Reverse?
This reversal is not accidental. It is structural.
First, foreign workers have been treated primarily as subjects of immigration control rather than labor policy.
Status of residence governs their position, and management takes precedence over rights.
Second, foreign labor operates within a bilateral labor market structure.
Unlike postwar domestic migration, it involves both Japan and the sending country.
Yet policies rarely incorporate post-return employment or long-term career pathways.
Third, policy has been driven by numerical targets.
“How many workers to accept” is prioritized over “how they work and integrate.”
These structural factors have fixed the reversed order in place.
What Should Be Learned from Postwar Legislation
Postwar labor policy offers concrete institutional lessons.
First, minimum standards must be paired with enforcement.
The creation of labor inspection systems was as important as the laws themselves.
In the context of foreign labor, this implies linking immigration screening with labor law compliance at the firm level.
Second, matching mechanisms should be institutionalized.
Postwar Japan regulated private job placement and centered public employment services.
Today’s reliance on private intermediaries in foreign labor migration reveals a gap that must be addressed.
Third, bargaining power must be embedded in the system.
Protection is not only individual but collective.
Foreign workers still lack sufficient institutional channels to voice concerns and negotiate conditions.
Fourth, labor policy must be connected to industrial policy.
Postwar Japan did not treat labor as a mere input but as part of a broader strategy of productivity and structural transformation.
The same integrated perspective is required today.
Implications for the Balanced Coexistence Model
From the perspective of the Balanced Coexistence Model, the conclusion is clear:
Rights must be designed into the system from the outset, not added afterward.
Equally important is the integration of systems:
Labor markets, immigration systems, and social integration must not be treated as separate domains.
Postwar Japan achieved this integration domestically.
The challenge now is to reconstruct it across borders.
Restoring the Proper Order
What foreign labor policy requires is not an entirely new system.
What is needed is far simpler—and more fundamental:
the restoration of the proper order of institutional design.
Postwar labor legislation has already provided a blueprint.
The issue is that it has not been applied to the internationalization of labor policy.
Conclusion
Postwar labor law can be understood as an early form of what the Balanced Coexistence Model seeks to articulate.
Current foreign labor policy, however, reflects a misordered attempt to extend that model beyond national borders.
The task, therefore, is not expansion, but reconstruction.
To restore the order.
Only from that starting point can sustainable coexistence emerge.