Flex-time plus results-based system equals overwork in IBM Japan
IBM Japan, Ltd. has introduced a new work system that forces its workers to endure long hours of work and excessive workloads. The IBM president had stated openly that his company would be the pioneer of this personnel system in Japan. Akahata on April 7 reported as follows:
Yamada Taro, a 38-year-old systems engineer at IBM Japan, is in a whirl of work due to the discretionary work the company introduced in March to about 6,400 systems engineers, who account for about one third of IBM Japan's 20,000-workforce.
Under the new system, workers are paid for fixed hours of work agreed upon in advance between labor and management, regardless of hours they actually worked.
On the grounds that punching in and punching out is meaningless, IBM Japan rewrote the time-managing computer program so that workers could no longer record their actual overtime.
Yamada then decided to record his time of arrival and departure everyday in his notebook.
The All-Japan Metal and Information Machinery Workers' Union (JMIU) IBM Japan branch estimates that Yamada works an average of 49-hours overtime a month, but is paid about 100,000 yen a month for overtime or 1,177,000 yen a year less than his actual overtime wages.
A survey of systems engineers conducted by the JMIU IBM Japan branch shows that the average overtime among 342 respondents was 30.7 hours a month, a loss of 63,000 yen a month or 756,000 yen a year for actual overtime work. With 6,400 systems engineers, the company will save about 4,840 million yen a year in overtime wages.
IBM Japan has a performance-based pay system with a scale of A to D. If a worker is rated C or D, the worker will not only receive more than one million yen less in bonuses than others, but also will be regarded as "incompetent" and eventually be forced to leave the company.
Workers are obliged to refrain from claiming their actual hours of work for fear that their performance will be evaluated low, resulting in smaller amounts of bonuses.
Higa Tsuneo, a leader of the JMIU IBM Japan branch said, "Under this system, even a worker dies from overwork, it will be the worker's responsibility. I want to eliminate excessive workloads and unpaid overtime work by calling on all IBM workers to record their own hours of work." (end)
