Uniqlo's working practices unveiled following undercover expose

London - Fast Retailing Co. leading fashion brand Uniqlo is unable to shake its former reputation as a “black company” and has become the focus of an undercover investigation carried out by journalist Masuo Yokota that highlights its poor labour conditions which see sales associates being forced to work long hours.

In an article published in the December 8th issued of Shukan Bunshun, Yokota, who previously published a book entitled “Light and Shadow of the Uniqlo Empire” in 2011 which claimed the retail giant wasn’t compensating employees for working overtime, explains how he went undercover as a retail associate at an Uniqlo outlet in Chiba.

Part of his decision to do so was linked to an interview published with Uniqlo founder and chairman Tadashi Yanai in March 2015 in President magazine, who said people who wrote books like the one Yokota did “should actually experience working in our company,” reported the Japan Times.

Under an alias Yokota, who is in his 50s, began working at Uniqlo in the fall of 2015. He worked at numerous locations for thirteen months, as he was transferred many times, always taking note of the daily newsletters sent out from the upper management teams. Due to his previous book and the following lawsuit it brought on, Uniqlo has made a number of changed to its labour practices to ensure overtime was kept to a minimum.

However, the majority of the changes seemed to have occurred mostly on paper as Yokota found himself, with other regular sales associates working seven days in a row from 9 am to 11:30 pm during November’s annual “thank you” festival. “It was like a war zone,” he wrote in his Bunshun article on working during the sales periods.

In addition, he outlines how many regular employees would clock out of work for the day but then go on working for free, as the new rules limit official overtime. During busy sales period, head office employees would also be sent to work in stores and retail locations also extend sales periods to try and reach the sales targets set by Yanai.

After Yokota first reports were published, Uniqlo figured out his cover and fired him. However, in a second series of publications, Yokota describes his dismissal from Uniqlo, during which he asked what company rule he had broken to be fired. It emerged that he was not fired for the content of his articles, rather for merely writing them.

Photo: Courtesy of Uniqlo