 Japan Post pays 3.2 billion yen in back pay Japan Post, the former postal service agency, has paid about 57,000 employees about 3.2 billion yen in total in back pay for overtime work. This was learned when Japanese Communist Party Shiokawa Tetsuya took the floor at the House of Representatives Budget Committee on February 22. Shiokawa regards this measure as a first step toward eliminating unpaid overtime work, but pointed out that the actual number of employees who received overtime work allowances was just the tip of the iceberg. He demanded that Japan Post check its employees' actual working hours over the past two years in compliance with its legal obligation as an employer and establish a system in which the employees do not have to work overtime. Executive Vice President of Japan Post Heroes Shun'ichiro replied, "We'll ascertain our employees' actual working hours and take appropriate measures to get rid of overtime work without pay." Only a small number of post workers, who could prove their actual working hours, out of about 400,000 across the nation received the overtime allowances. The rest of the workers remain dissatisfied with the measure. Despite the absence of objective records such as a time clock, Japan Post required its employees to prove their overtime when applying for the allowances. It also set a limit on the applicable period for only the three months from October 2004. A female employee of a post office in Tokyo had kept a record of her working hours and could apply for the 3-month overtime allowances based on this record. As a result, she received 32,000 yen in back pay. All other six workers at the same post office, however, had to give up even applying because they had not kept a record of their working hours. JCP Representative Shiokawa Tetsuya doggedly takes up the problem of overtime work without pay in the Lower House committee and calls for drastic measures to be taken to eradicate unpaid overtime work. (end) |