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Court orders Yodobashi Camera to compensate temp workers for assault

Major volume-sales electrical appliance store chain Yodobashi Camera and a staffing agency on October were ordered by the Tokyo District Court to pay a total of 5.6 million yen in damages to a 28-year-old temporary worker for physical abuse he suffered from his superiors in the workplace.

The court said that when the plaintiff was working at Yodobashi Camera's cellular phone department, his superior used violence against him allegedly because the plaintiff failed to smile when he attended to customers.

The temp worker was sent to Yodobashi through two agencies, the staffing agency which originally employed him and the mobile phone company DDI pocket (WILLCOM). Forced to work under such an illegal structure, he was assaulted four times by Yodobashi and staffing agency workers.

The court ordered Yodobashi and its worker concerned to pay 10 thousand yen as well as the temp agency and its worker concerned to pay about 1.5 million yen to the plaintiff in compensation for the assault. It also ordered the staff agency and its worker concerned to pay about 4 million yen to his mother, writer Shimoda Harumi, who claimed that the incident mentally tortured her and made it difficult for her to continue to work.

Although the plaintiffs were urging the court to hold Yodobashi and DDI Pocket responsible as employers, it rejected their demand. -- Akahata, October 5, 2005