Japan Press Weekly

Tweet

2013 August 28 - September 3 [LABOR]

‘Black corporations’ hot line receives over 1,000 calls

The Labor Ministry’s telephone counseling service for workers suffering from exploitative labor practices of so-called “black corporations” on September 1 received more than 1,000 calls and half of them were about overtime without pay.

The counseling service was realized as a result of the growing public movement against black corporations. The Japanese Communist Party has been criticizing companies which impose abusive working conditions on their employees in Diet sessions by making company names public. The party demanded that the government conduct thorough investigations into the companies and strictly instruct them.

Of a total of 1,042 calls to the hot line, 253 (24.3%) calls were from workers aged 30-39 and 252 (24.2%) are from workers aged 20-29.

In multiple answers, 556 (53.4%) claimed that they were forced to work overtime without pay, 414 (39.7%) callers said they are suffering from excessive long working hours due to heavy workloads, and 163 (15.6%) said they are victims of “power harassment”, abusive behavior by superiors toward inferiors in a workplace.

By industry sector, 213 (20.4%) calls were from manufacturing workers and 207 (19.9%) were from commercial workers.

The labor ministry designated September as a month to intensively conduct inspections of companies which are suspected of abusing young workers and issue instructions to them if needed.

Past related articles:
> Labor ministry will inspect 4,000 ‘black corporations’ [August 9, 2013]
> JCP forms task force for elimination of ‘black corporations’ [August 8, 2013]