Labor ministry to introduce white-collar exemption to abolish overtime payment

Japan Press Service Co., Ltd. is the only news agency providing information of progressive, democratic movements in Japan

Labor ministry to introduce white-collar exemption to abolish overtime payment

The Health, Labor, and Welfare Ministry on November 10 showed its advisory body the outline of a white-collar exemption system that will enable corporations to make workers work for long hours and pay no money for overtime work.

The labor ministry plans to submit to the Diet next spring related bills to establish this new system that has been called for by the Japan Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren).

The new labor system will cease to apply regulations on working hours to white-collar workers on the grounds that these workers need a system enabling them to work flexibly.

At the panel meeting, representatives of workers criticized the ministry proposal by saying, "Where can you find a really flexible way of working? This new system will only aggravate the adverse working conditions that have caused the destruction of health and even death from overwork."

Even public members of the panel voiced doubt about the necessity of the new system, pointing out that flexible working hour management systems including the discretionary labor system have already been implemented.

The Japan Research Institute of the Labor Movement (Rodo-soken), a think tank of the National Confederation of Trade Unions (Zenroren), on November 8 released a report that estimates the effect of the introduction of the white-collar exemption system to be applied to white-collar workers earning a yearly income more than four million yen as is proposed by the Japan Business Federation.

According to the report, the new system will rob each white-collar worker of a yearly overtime pay of 1.14 million yen at average and all white-collar workers (estimated as 10.13 million workers) of 11.6 trillion yen in total, which includes both paid overtime of 4.6 trillion yen and unpaid overtime of seven trillion yen.
- Akahata, November 9 & 11, 2006