Japan’s secret army of zombie factory workers

For decades American manufacturers watched in horror as their Japanese rivals cannibalized their market shares by making better and cheaper products with none of the setbacks of strong unions. Today’s NYT might include some secret hints as to how those crafty Japanese were able to pull it off.

You see, their recent article discussing the Japanese “lifetime employment” system inexplicably contains the word “zombie” in the URL (html file name: 20zombie.html), accompanied by this photo:

20zombie01-600

The man has clearly been conditioned to channel his thirst for brains into a more productive dedication to just-in-time delivery. That’s right, Japanese workers can never be fired but in exchange they never die and never take days off.

So if you’ve been following along, that means the Jewish lizard people who run the One World Government are now controlling zombie Japanese factory workers to deprive American union workers of their jobs. Someone get Benjamin Fulford on the phone!

14 thoughts on “Japan’s secret army of zombie factory workers”

  2. They’re talking about the employment system when we have a zombie infestation problem? Now that’s what I call burying the lead!

  3. Obviously this is just another example of the Times’ left-wing pro-zombie agenda.

  4. Curz:

    In my more lucid moments, I imagine the headline started out as “Restricted from cutting lifetime workers, Japan’s ‘zombie’ companies rely on government life support” or something like that which got edited out later when they realized the US is doing the exact same thing.

  5. I think we need a “zombies” category now. That guy really looks like one, too.

    But seriously, the “zombie” comparison is apt. Japanese companies really do come up with tons of “busy work” to keep their excess lifetime employees from getting bored. In my company they all get sent to Internal Audit in order to ensure that everything the company does is properly approved, and of course the threat of internal audit means that all the other employees have to waste loads of time documenting their every move.

  6. “But seriously, the “zombie” comparison is apt. Japanese companies really do come up with tons of “busy work” to keep their excess lifetime employees from getting bored.”

    Maybe so in the case of white collared office workers or those in the service industry,But blue collared factory workers,where efficiency matters and actually succeded that in international competition?

    Just another evidence that “usually relieable”NYT isn’t so in Japan reporting.
    http://son-of-gadfly-on-the-wall.blogspot.com/2009/05/online-nyt-edit-trips-up-saletan-on.html

  7. Ace: You’d be right except the beginning of the article is all about how the factories are finding creative ways to keep people busy (though the stuff about a garden is apparently just some dude’s idea not an actual policy anywhere). If I recall the front-page right-hand column of the Nikkei was making similar anecdotal reports of idle but employed factory workers, and of course there are the reports of some workers being allowed to take weekend part-time jobs to supplement the lack of overtime.

    I think there’s a difference between Joe’s Dilbert-esque zombie workers who have no skills to begin with and the workers at zombie companies that are great at what they do but work for companies that can’t maintain cash flow or find any business in the recession.

  8. That’s right.And still why we have the term “zombie” here.Misleading at best,the hidden prejudice at worst.

  11. Wow this music is pretty awesome, especially if you pretend all the songs are about the zombie apocalypse.

  13. I never heard of Fela Kuti before, but he seems pretty damn interesting.

    In 1978 Fela married 27 women, many of whom were his dancers, composers, and singers to mark the anniversary of the attack on the Kalakuta Republic. Later, he was to adopt a rotation system of keeping only twelve simultaneous wives.[5] The year was also marked by two notorious concerts, the first in Accra in which riots broke out during the song “Zombie,” which led to Fela being banned from entering Ghana. The second was at the Berlin Jazz Festival after which most of Fela’s musicians deserted him, due to rumors that Fela was planning to use the entirety of the proceeds to fund his presidential campaign.

    Time to find more of his music.

  14. Woah, yes.

    If the Japanese factory workers have nothing better to do, I say get them started remaking this video.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=So45JVJ0Y9A

    Wouldnt you love to see the oyaji in the above photo wriggling and humping himself dizzy? (and check the dude toward the end. I dont think a guy’s hips are supposed to move like that)

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