November 19, 2013
Akahata editorial (excerpt)
The Labor Policy Council to the Labor Ministry began discussions on relaxing the regulations on working hours. In accordance with the Japan Revitalization Strategy decided upon by the Abe Cabinet in June, they aim to have employees work longer hours without pay by increasing the number of job categories subject to the discretionary work system.
Ahead of the council’s deliberation, the Labor Ministry conducted a survey on working hours between April and June. The survey results show that the proportion of those who work over 60 hours a week is about 10%, reaching 18.2% of workers in their 30s. These workers’ overtime exceeds 80 hours a month, the borderline set by the ministry for possible “karoshi” (death from overwork).
Japan’s Labor Standards Law bans employers from making employees work more than 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week. However, Article 36 of the act allows employers to use employees “unlimitedly” on condition of making a labor-management agreement. Although the labor authorities advise employers not to have workers do overtime work more than 45 hours a month and 360 hours a year, it has no binding legal force. This results in Japanese workers’ extraordinarily long working hours, 2,030 hours a year on average, which is the highest level in the world.
Workers at large corporations are forced to work longer than those at small- and medium-sized enterprises. According to the ministry’s survey, the average overtime working hours of workers at large companies is 26 hours and 25 minutes a month, while it is 15 hours and 21 minutes at SMEs. Business entities making employees do overtime more than 45 hours a week account for 17% of the total of big companies, and 9% of all the small businesses. The ratio of large enterprises at which annual overtime working hours exceeds 360 hours comes to 22.1%, which is more than twice that of SMEs, at 9.7%.
The government intent to relax working hour regulations would encourage large corporations to work their workers much longer and drive them to death from overwork. The need now is to strictly regulate long working hours by giving legal force to the 360-hour upper limit on annual overtime work as well as requiring employers to pay workers a higher wage for overtime work.
The Labor Policy Council to the Labor Ministry began discussions on relaxing the regulations on working hours. In accordance with the Japan Revitalization Strategy decided upon by the Abe Cabinet in June, they aim to have employees work longer hours without pay by increasing the number of job categories subject to the discretionary work system.
Ahead of the council’s deliberation, the Labor Ministry conducted a survey on working hours between April and June. The survey results show that the proportion of those who work over 60 hours a week is about 10%, reaching 18.2% of workers in their 30s. These workers’ overtime exceeds 80 hours a month, the borderline set by the ministry for possible “karoshi” (death from overwork).
Japan’s Labor Standards Law bans employers from making employees work more than 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week. However, Article 36 of the act allows employers to use employees “unlimitedly” on condition of making a labor-management agreement. Although the labor authorities advise employers not to have workers do overtime work more than 45 hours a month and 360 hours a year, it has no binding legal force. This results in Japanese workers’ extraordinarily long working hours, 2,030 hours a year on average, which is the highest level in the world.
Workers at large corporations are forced to work longer than those at small- and medium-sized enterprises. According to the ministry’s survey, the average overtime working hours of workers at large companies is 26 hours and 25 minutes a month, while it is 15 hours and 21 minutes at SMEs. Business entities making employees do overtime more than 45 hours a week account for 17% of the total of big companies, and 9% of all the small businesses. The ratio of large enterprises at which annual overtime working hours exceeds 360 hours comes to 22.1%, which is more than twice that of SMEs, at 9.7%.
The government intent to relax working hour regulations would encourage large corporations to work their workers much longer and drive them to death from overwork. The need now is to strictly regulate long working hours by giving legal force to the 360-hour upper limit on annual overtime work as well as requiring employers to pay workers a higher wage for overtime work.
