Ippei Torii has literally risked his life to rescue non-Japanese workers from oppressive labor conditions over his long career as a union official.

Torii, 66, who chairs the nonprofit group Solidarity Network with Migrants Japan, has spent 30 years assisting more than 4,000 foreign workers who have endured unfair dismissals, unpaid salaries, covered up occupational accidents and other issues.

Over the years, Torii has logged up to 5,000 kilometers a month personally driving to workplaces of victims in need of urgent assistance to directly listen to their complaints.

His efforts to defend their interests against their employers, while praised by the many workers he has helped, have also put him directly in harm’s way.

In the worst incident, which occurred when he was 40, the president of a small company that had refused to pay employees their wages doused Torii with gasoline and set him on fire when he arrived to witness court officials seize the firm’s property.

The assault landed Torii in a critical care center for severe burns and a two-month stay in the hospital for treatment, including skin grafting. 

So why is he so driven to aggressively help others?

“I just really enjoy meeting and getting to know people,” Torii said.

In 2019, business operators in Japan reported hiring a total of 1.66 million people from outside the country, labor ministry data shows.

Though the government has insisted it “will not introduce an immigration policy,” Torii says migrants already form an integral part of Japanese society.

“An environment where foreign workers are exploited has been created due to policies that do not reflect reality,” Torii said.

Torii was among the first to expose how participants in the government's Technical Intern Training Program, ostensibly designed to teach skills to foreigners, were being exploited by employers.

He revealed that many trainees were forced to work for “an hourly wage of 300 yen ($2.79) for 400 hours a month” and also testified before a Diet session on the program, which is often labeled a clear violation of human rights.

“It is nothing more than slave labor,” Torii noted. “The practice must be abandoned as quickly as possible.”

Since helping found the Solidarity Network with Migrants Japan to protect foreign workers, Torii has been serving as chairman to introduce legal and other systems to improve their labor conditions.

In 2013, he was named a Trafficking in Persons Report Hero by the U.S. State Department for pursuing problems with the Technical Intern Training Program. 

Born in Toyonaka, Osaka Prefecture, to parents living in a housing complex, Torii immersed himself in a debate club as a high school student while student riots erupted at universities in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

When his family’s business went under in his third year, Torii was forced to start working and resorted to studying in an evening course at Kobe University, where he devoted himself to student council activities.

From there, Torii took a factory job in Tokyo at age 24, only to lose the middle finger of his left hand in a work accident. He joined the Zentouitsu Workers Union and won improved working conditions through negotiations with his employer.

The experience etched in him the vital importance of having a labor union to protect workers and inspired Torii to join the Zentouitsu Workers Union as a full-time official.

His commitment to improving the lives of foreign workers began in 1991, when in his union capacity, Torii visited a hospital with a young Bangladeshi who lost three fingers in an accident at work and contacted the union.

At the hospital, Torii was shocked to find many other injured foreign workers in bandages and realized “something terrible was happening” in Japanese society.

In 1993, 300,000 people from outside Japan were overstaying their visas, and by continuing to work at the bottom of the social scale contributed to the economic boom at the time.

Working with others, Torii established a subgroup of the Zentouitsu Workers Union to rescue foreign workers and organized “spring labor offensive for foreign workers” that year. While Japan’s labor movements traditionally did not target those of foreign nationalities, Torii viewed their problem as involving Japanese citizens as well.

Today, about 4,000 workers from 40 countries belong to the subgroup.

Even after paying the brutal price of being set ablaze for his labor rights advocacy, the veteran activist was philosophical instead of bitter regarding his attacker.

Rather than harboring hatred against the president, Torii started thinking of what had backed him into a corner mentally.

“He may also have been in a vulnerable position,” Torii recalled. “Factors in the world cannot be simply divided into justice and evil.”

Torii’s fearless actions have earned him great trust among foreign workers.

“He made me become aware that we also have rights,” said a 42-year-old Turkish construction worker. “I have never seen a man who is more gentle than him.”

Torii said the novel coronavirus pandemic has severely affected the working conditions of foreign workers.

“Japan now stands at a crossroads, facing a test of whether it can become a society in which different ethnic groups from different cultures can live together,” Torii said.