May 11, 2014

Akahata Sunday edition

“We want to change this society which drives young people to death after excessively hard work,” states a family who lost their son and has been calling for a law to be enacted to prevent “karoshi”, death from overwork.

They are Igarashi Teruko and Yoshiro, a couple in their 60s in Mikawa Town in Yamagata. They lost their loved one three years ago.

Hisato, their 25-year-old eldest son, joined Karula Co., Ltd. in March 2009, a restaurant-chain operator in northeast Japan. He took a position as the acting manager of a restaurant. Soon, long workdays ensued. He would leave home in the morning and return home early the next morning. This continued for two years. One day in March 2011, Hisato left the restaurant for home after texting to his sister a message, “I want to have a little rest. I’m so exhausted.”

Teruko, his mother, was out at that time. When she returned home, she saw an ambulance and a police car in front of the house. She dashed upstairs into Hisato’s room. On his back in bed, his cheeks were already stiff and cold.

A year and a half later, a local labor standards inspection office recognized his death as work-related, caused by more than 80 hours of overtime a month on average, sometimes exceeding 100 hours.

Now the couple is fighting in court against the restaurant operator, seeking compensation for their son’s death.

They also formed a group with their neighbors who support the couple and began calling for the enactment of a fundamental law on karoshi prevention. They are carrying out a signature-collection drive and are pushing local municipal assemblies to adopt a resolution to this effect. Assemblies in two nearby towns and two cities have each passed such a resolution.

A nationwide committee consisting of bereaved families, supporters, and lawyers are also making efforts to protect workers from dying or committing suicide due to overwork. The committee states that at least 10 prefectural assemblies and 109 local assemblies have adopted a stance favorable to the enactment of a basic law on karoshi prevention. The number of signatures the group has so far collected reached 544,409.

Their activities have moved the Diet to act. The parliamentarians’ league in which lawmakers from all political parties take part was set up, and they are currently coordinating a bill to be drafted this month.