Nearly half of workers report ‘customer harassment’ in last 2 yrs: Japan survey

TOKYO — Close to half of the service industry and other workers polled this year by a Japan labor union said they have experienced “customer harassment” within the past two years, including serious cases such as being threatened and screamed at, according to results announced on June 5.

The industrial union UA Zensen, whose 1.85 million members also include retail industry workers, carried out the survey between this January and March, and received responses from 33,133 members. Its first survey in 2017 unveiled the issue of customer harassment to the public.

A total of 46.8% of surveyed members reported being harassed by customers in the last two years. When asked what sort of incidents left the biggest mark, 39.8% chose “verbal abuse.” Responses in the freely written section included a case where a customer said, “You’re just a woman,” derisively to a worker and returned with a wooden sword, and another who screamed, “Shut up, I’ll kill you,” when spoken to about their dessert.

Threats and intimidation were the second most common form of harassment, cited by 14.7% of respondents. One said, “I was told, ‘Grit your teeth,’ and they tried to punch me and run me over with their car.”

The next most noted types of harassment included repeating the same complaints, at 13.8%, being held up in one place for a long period, at 11.1%, and overbearing attitudes at 10.2%. As an example of online harassment, which was named by 0.8%, one member wrote, “I was being filmed and called the police to respond, only to end up being subjected to baseless slander on the internet.”

In 70.6% of the cases, the perpetrators were men. More than 90% of the harassers were thought to be in at least their 40s, with those in their 50s and 60s representing around 30% each.

In 62.7% of cases, it took one hour or less for the workers to deal with the harassers, but nearly 40% took longer.

The percentage of respondents who said they had experienced harassment was down from 56.7% on the last survey in 2020. The union believes this is due to increased awareness partially thanks to the guidelines under the revised comprehensive labor policy promotion law that came into effect in June 2020, which stated that the establishment of consultation systems against customer harassment and consideration toward victims were “desirable.”

Regarding measures implemented by employers and others, 42.2% of respondents answered that there were “none in particular,” almost unchanged from the previous survey. To protect employees from harassment, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare is considering legislation which legally requires companies to take measures such as setting up consultation systems and making considerations for victims.

(Japanese original by Haruna Okuyama, Lifestyle, Science & Environment News Department)