When I touched on the subject of Disneyland Japan back in July, I noted Disneyland Japan’s stellar reputation in the country. With a repeat visitor rate of 90% and a customer service philosophy that is the subject of numerous case studies, it’s seemed like Disneyland really lives up to its Japanese marketing slogan of the “dream country” (夢の国; yume no kuni).
That may be about to change.
One of the chronic issues dogging Japanese business is the phenomenon of ブラック企業 (burakku kigyou), or “black enterprise”, a label used to refer to any business that overworks, abuses, or underpays its employees (or, usually, a combination of all three). This behavior isn’t limited to small businesses or chains: the most infamous example in recent years occurred at Dentsuu, Japan’s largest advertising firm, where a 24-year-old employee leapt to her death after putting in 100 hours of overtime in a month. The incident was one of the driving factors behind the new Work Reform Law (働き方改革; hatarakikata kaikaku), which sets overtime limits for non-professional workers.
Now, suspicions have surfaced that Disneyland Japan may be running a black enterprise itself. Two employees of Disneyland Japan who work as costume characters are suing the company with accusations that they were forced to work long hours without rest in the grueling summer heat, and that, when they complained of health issues, their supervisor responded to medical requests with abuse:
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労災申請をしようとすると、上司に「それくらい我慢しなきゃ」「君は心が弱い」と返された。役の変更を申し入れたが、「わがままには対応できない」と取り合ってもらえなかったという。ぜんそくの症状が出るとして楽屋の環境改善を相談したときにも、「病気なのか、それなら死んじまえ」と突き放されたとしている。
When [a male employee who’d been injured] tried to file a worker’s compensation request, his boss replied, “Just gut it out”, and “You don’t have any gumption”. When he tried to transfer positions, he was denied with the comment, “I can’t respond to selfish requests”. When he tried to get improvements at the pharmacy when his asthma was acting up, he was flatly denied with, “You’re sick? Then just die.”
Charming!
One of the female workers behind the complaint who was interviewed for the story said she’s put up with this kind of behavior for years, but couldn’t stand it any longer. Asahi Shinbun notes that a driving factor behind this is the lack of mobility in the theme park industry. Outside of Disney and Universal Studios Japan, there aren’t many job opportunities that involve delighting the public as one’s favorite brand characters. The lack of mobility, along with the conviction that working at Disneyland is a “dream job,” may lead many workers to shut up rather than put up.
A spokesperson for Orientalland, the Japanese company that licenses rights to run Disneyland from the Walt Disney Corporation, said it hadn’t seen the lawsuit yet, and said it will deal with it when it reads it.
For my part, I sincerely hope the incident is overblown. In this day and age, we need things to believe in, and as corny as it may be to pin one’s hopes on a theme park, I’d like to believe that Disneyland Japan is better than this.