Japan Press Weekly

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2016 June 15 - 21 [LABOR]

JCP lawmaker’s Diet deliberations contribute to revising Sony’s overtime payment system

It has come to light that the Sony workers’ union Sendai branch used Japanese Communist Party lawmaker’s Diet deliberations to have the company rectify errors in overtime pay calculations.

Sato Miwako, a union member working at Sony Sendai Technology Center (Tagajo City, Miyagi Pref.), found that the amount of overtime pay that she received did not reflect the actual number of overtime hours she worked. She brought this matter to her union.

According to the union, under Sony’s overtime pay calculation program, the company tracks overtime in 15-minute increments only when workers work more than one hour of overtime.

The Sony union in May negotiated with the company over this issue and pointed out the possibility that Sony’s method of calculating overtime violates the Labor Standards Law. The company promised to calculate overtime pay on a minute-by-minute basis.

JCP member of the House of Councilors Tatsumi Kotaro on March 28 in a House committee meeting took up the fact that Japan’s leading convenience store chain Seven-Eleven Japan is rounding off the records of employees’ work time to the nearest 15 minutes. He criticized this labor practice as illegal.

Sony union chair Matsuda Takaaki said, “JCP Tatsumi’s Diet question contributed to pushing the company to review its overtime pay calculation system.”

Past related article:
> More than \100,000 in annual wages of part-timers might not be calculated at 7-Elevens [March 29, 2016]