NEC applies work system to 8,000 employees to work overtime without pay

NEC Corp., Japan's largest information machinery maker, last October introduced the so-called "discretionary" work system to 8,000 of its 24,000 employees.

At present, 7,000 employees are working under this system by which the worker is paid for only one hour of overtime, irrespective of the many hours he or she actually worked overtime.

Akahata of April 19 ran a story of what the reporter witnessed and heard from some workers who came out after midnight from the NEC main office building in Tokyo.

A male employee accountant in his mid-30s is under this system, even though it is not authorized by law. He said he always has to work 14 or 15 hours a day until midnight.

A systems engineer in his late 30s under this system said he works a hundred hours overtime a month, and sometimes has to work on Saturdays and Sundays.

A hundred hours overtime a month is the danger line for possible karoshi (death from overwork) set by the Health, Labor, and Welfare Ministry.

NEC has neglected the employer's obligation to regulate the hours actually worked by its employees.

A taxi driver near the office said, "Some workers come out around 3:30 a.m. and some rooms are lit up all night.

In 2002, NEC was accused by the Labor Standards Inspection Office for unpaid overtime, and in November paid 45 million yen to over 100 employees for their unpaid overtime.

Since 1998, the corporation has been applying the so-called "V work" system which is a bogus "discretionary work" system. Under this system, the company need not pay more than a prearranged sum for overtime no matter how many hours the employees actually worked.

After the company was instructed by the Labor Standards Inspection Office to change the illegal system, it introduced the present "New V work" system. This new system was reported to the LSIO, and this has made unpaid overtime apparently legal. Engineers, for example, are paid overtime for one hour a day, no matter how many hours they worked overtime. This system is incorporated with an achievement-based wage system.

A designer of computer hardware said, "Given the tight work schedules, we have no 'discretion' except to work from 8 a.m. to 4 a.m. the next morning."

NEC is suspected of illegally applying the system to such jobs as accounting, sales, and computer soft-and hard-ware design and development.

Disregarding the unfair labor practices at the major corporation, the government has a plan to adversely revise the Labor Standards Law so that the "discretionary work" system can be applied increasingly to more job categories. (end)