Japan Press Weekly

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2016 October 12 - 18 [LABOR]

Eliminate overwork driving workers to death

Akahata ‘current’ column

“It’s really painful to live and work.” During a happy Christmas atmosphere, a sense of despair took hold of a 24-year-old female employee of Dentsu, Japan’s major advertising agency.

At the end of 2015, the woman killed herself after she started working for Dentsu Inc. only eight months before. “I lost all of my senses except a sense of sleepiness.” In addition to excessive overtime extending into late-night work, she experienced frequent “power harassment” from her boss using abusive language. She felt physically and mentally drained.

“Don’t you wish you could stay in bed every morning or run away?” She posted her pain on social networking sites. The labor law enforcement authority approved her bereaved family’s request to recognize that her suicide was triggered by overwork. Dentsu only commented that it will take this decision seriously.

It was 25 years ago that another Dentsu worker committed suicide. Excessively long work hours drove a two-year male-employee to suicide. The worker struggled with the company’s sloppy work schedule management, repressive atmosphere, and extreme result-oriented management. This harsh work environment remains unchanged. It seems that the ads agency feels no remorse for its workers’ suicides.

The man’s family in 2000 won a Supreme Court ruling which explicates corporate obligation to pay attention to workers’ physical and mental health. What happens in reality? Surprisingly, the recently-released government’s first white paper on “karoshi (death from overwork)” shows that 20% of companies are forcing their workers to work more than 80 hours of overtime, the government-set danger line for karoshi.

The rate of taking paid leave remains below 50%. The number of public counselling services for workers who suffer workplace bullying and harassment has been slowly increasing. The need is to push companies to fulfill their responsibility to provide a safe and healthy environment to workers.

*****

Labor authorities investigate Dentsu over labor law violations
October 15, 2016

The Tokyo Labor Bureau on October 14 conducted surprise on-site inspections at the head office of Dentsu Inc., Japan’s leading advertising agency, in the wake of a 24-year-old female employee’s suicide due to overwork. If the labor authorities find serious violation of labor laws, they will consider sending the papers pertaining to the Dentsu’s suicide case to the public prosecutors’ office.


Past related article:
> Dentsu worker’s suicide recognized as work-related [October 8,2016]