Japan Press Weekly

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2011 February 23 - March 1 [LABOR]

Restaurant chain gives up unfair overtime system

Following a court order, a major restaurant chain gave up operating under an irregular working hour system that exempted itself from paying workers proper overtime wages.

This was announced on February 28 at a press conference by the Tokyo Metropolitan Youth Union which was calling on Nippon Restaurant System, Inc. to pay unpaid overtime and revoke the discriminatory system.

According to the union, the company announced that from May 15, it will stop applying the system to all 5,200 part-time workers and other temporary employees working at its restaurants nationwide.

The Japanese Labor Standards Law stipulates that if business operations tend to be concentrated during a certain time period, employers may introduce the irregular distribution of working time. Employers may require workers to work longer hours at busy times, provided that they shorten working hours at other times so that the total working hours during a fixed time period average out to no more than 8 hours a day and 40 hours a week. However, any company intending to introduce this system has to meet strict requirements.

In June 2009, 29-year-old union member Sudo Takeshi, working at a spaghetti restaurant, filed a lawsuit with the Tokyo District Court demanding that the company pay for past overtime and discontinue applying the irregular distribution of working time to part-time and other workers.

The court in April 2010 ruled the introduction of this working time calculation system to be invalid because the company failed to meet legal requirements, and the court ordered it to pay the unpaid overtime to Sudo.

Subsequently, the plaintiff and the company reached a settlement mediated by the Tokyo High Court after the company promised to comply with the Labor Standards Law.