labor

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Easing working hour regulations will increase unpaid overwork and karoshi
Akahata editorial

A Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry study group on work hour legislation is now discussing a draft report proposing introducing a white-collar exemption on condition that workers satisfy certain requirements.

The Labor Standards Law provides for an eight-hour day and a 40-hour week, and if workers work overtime or do late-night work that they should be paid premium wages. If these regulations are lifted, workers will be forced to work without limits and without overtime pay. The deregulation will increase cases of unpaid overtime work and deaths from overwork (karoshi).

Danger of labor-management talks controlling everything

The ﾒdraft reportﾓ says that corporate would-be middle-management executives who are in a managerial position and project team leaders of corporate research and development sections could be exempted from working hour regulations.

Workers in middle managerial jobs and project team leaders are forced to work excessively heavy workloads, and this is now a big social problem. For example, the percentage of male workers in their 30s who work more than 60 hours a week increased to 23.8 percent (about 2 million) in 2004 from 20.3 percent (about 1.5 million) in 1993. A major cause of the falling birth rate is the many extra hours worked by workers who make up the generation that raises children. To impose heavier workloads on these workers will be contrary to the effort to reverse this tendency.

The ﾒdraft reportﾓ proposes that exemption of particular categories of workers from working hour regulations should be in accordance with labor-management agreements. Rules to control working hours were established because if labor talks are allowed to decide on working hours, capitalists will undoubtedly impose long working hours on workers. To allow labor-management talks to decide on working hours will end up in laissez-faire for corporations.

The range of white-collar workers satisfying certain requirements for being exempted from work hour regulations is not specified. According to the HL&W Ministry, so-called white-collar workers such as those engaged in professional or technical jobs, and managerial, clerical, and sales jobs comprise 55.2 percent of the employed, totaling 29.54 million.

Even though not all white-collar workers will be exempted from work hour regulations, there is the danger that targeted jobs will be unlimitedly increased as long as there is no legal limit and everything is left to labor-management talks.

The white-collar exemption was first called for by the Japan Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren), the backbone of financial circles. It proposes that any worker with an annual income of over 4 million yen shall be exempted from work hour regulations. The ﾒdraft reportﾓ states that one requirement for exemption is that the annual income of an applicant for exemption should not be less than that of workers who work under ordinary time-based work control.

Clearly, the ministry draft report is designed to promote deregulation on working hours based on the Nippon Keidanren proposal.

Rid workplaces of illegal practices

Today, regular workers are forced to work for extra hours without pay, while contingent workers on stable jobs have to work for extremely low wages without workers' rights.

The Japanese Communist Party in its Central Committee Report to the JCP 24th Congress proposes an increased struggle against deregulations in labor legislation, calling for rules to be established to defend worker rights, and the elimination of illegal and discriminative practices from workplaces, in solidarity with all groups of people.

Let us push forward the struggle to demand decent jobs and work conditions, with solidarity between regular and non-regular workers.
- Akahata, January 12, 2006