‘Job terrorism’ videos show how young workers are revolting

A cook rubs pieces of fried chicken on the floor. A checkout assistant in a corner shop licks bottles and packets of chips. A chortling sushi chef pulls a fish out of a rubbish bin and places it on a chopping board.

This is the frightening world of baito tero, or ‘‘part-time job terrorism’’ – and it is giving Japan the shivers.

In a country where courteous service and high standards of hygiene are taken for granted, businesses and customers have been horrified by mobile phone videos posted online which show young people doing disgusting things in restaurants and shops.

Some of the perpetrators, who make no effort to disguise their identities, face prosecution. Several businesses embarrassed by such videos have closed down. The phenomenon is provoking anxious discussions about the irresponsibility of young people – and the economic conditions that place them in insecure and poorly paid jobs which encourage boredom and tomfoolery.

The baito tero phenomenon was first noted in 2013, when a man working in a convenience store posted a photo of himself lying in an ice cream refrigerator. In an effort to reassure its customers, the shop closed its doors and threw all the ice cream away.

The same year, a soba noodle shop went out of business after male employees were seen cupping empty bowls against their chests like bras. Similar disgust was aroused two years later by a scene in a restaurant in which a young chef was seen rubbing a ladle against his groin.

More recently, part-time job atrocities have been coming in a rush. A chef who lit his cigarette with a flaming wok forced his restaurant chain to make a grovelling apology. The same thing happened after a part-timer at Pizza Hut used pizza dough to make himself an amusing face mask.

The sushi shop boys who retrieved the fish out of the bin face possible legal action, although their former employees are unlikely to extract significant damages from them.

As some commentators have pointed out, more and more young Japanese are ending up in part-time jobs that provide few of the satisfactions and less of the remuneration and security of permanent employment.

‘‘I don’t think that low pay leads directly to these inappropriate videos,’’ said Kaitaro Asahi, a researcher into labour conditions at Teikoku Databank. ‘‘But in order to recruit good staff, [companies] cannot avoid raising pay, and that cost will be passed on through prices. The question is whether society can accept that or not.’’ – The Times