36% of businesses surveyed reprimanded for unpaid overtime

The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry on October 23 announced that 35.8 percent of business offices surveyed neglected to pay overtime allowances and that they received an administrative directive to redress the situation.

The survey shows that 1,543 out of 4,311 business establishments violated Article 37 of the Labor Standards Law stipulating that employers must pay employees extra wages for overtime work.

The ratio of such against-the-law business institutions has been increasing: 29 percent in 2001, and 32.9 percent in 2002.

Against the backdrop of Tokyo's listed manufacturers planning to cut 300,000 jobs in three years, remaining workers are forced to bear excessively heavy workloads for long hours. Some commit suicide, die, or become mentally unstable because of overwork.

The Japanese Communist Party has taken up this issue 241 times in Diet discussions since 1976, calling for the eradication of unpaid overtime work. (end)