Major restaurant chain agrees to compensate for a non-regular restaurant manager's death from overwork

Japan Press Weekly

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Major restaurant chain agrees to compensate for a non-regular restaurant manager's death from overwork

The major restaurant chain Skylark Holdings Co. agreed to pay compensation for the death from overwork (karoshi) of a 32-year-old non-regular restaurant manager, Maesawa Takayuki.

His mother, Maesawa Emiko, announced this on May 13 at a news conference.

The undisclosed sum will be paid based on a full-time worker's salary. Skylark will also pay its 55 non-regular restaurant managers a total of about 17.4 million yen in back pay for two years of unpaid overtime.

Maesawa began working as a part-timer at a Skylark restaurant in 1991, and was assigned as manager in Kurihashi Town, Saitama Prefecture, in 2006. Although he shouldered heavy responsibility as manager and worked excessively long hours, he continued to work under a fixed-term contract subjected to renewal each year.

In 2007, when Maesawa was 32 years old, he died of a cerebral hemorrhage. Records show that for three consecutive months before his death, he worked more than 200 hours of overtime per month.

The Labor Standards Inspection Office in Kasukabe City in Saitama Prefecture recognized Maesawa's death as work-related.

- Akahata May 14, 2009