Under this programme, unskilled workers mostly from developing countries receive a one-year visa (renewable for up to three years) to come to Japan for technical training. Labour laws are applied to the trainees and they are granted the right to organise and so on, but it is reported that in some cases the trainees are sent to Japan by the dispatching organisation in their home country on the condition that they will not exercise the right to organise.
Furthermore, since the existence of an accepting organisation is a precondition for the trainees to enter Japan, the position of the accepting organisation is overwhelmingly advantageous compared to that of the trainees.
As a result, the strongly-positioned accepting organisations restrict the right to organise, and there are many cases in which trainees have been made to work long hours under very inadequate working conditions.
In addition, in the first stage of the technical training, the trainees are supposed to undergo a Japanese language course, but the judgment concerning whether the trainees are workers under the Trade Union Act during the period of the course is ambiguous.