Japan Press Weekly

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2013 December 11 - 17 [LABOR]

Zenroren provides labor counseling service across Japan

As public criticism is growing against so-called “black corporations” which use workers as disposable labor, the National Confederation of Trade Unions (Zenroren) offered telephone counselling services to workers across the country on December 11.

As of 2:00 p.m. on that day, Zenroren’s local member unions received 107 requests for advice in 20 prefectures. As for the contents of consultations, issues about wages and working hours made up the largest number. The ratio of regular employees to non-regular ones among callers was fifty-fifty.

In Tokyo, a male regular worker at a manufacturing company said that he has been forced to do more than 100-hour overwork every month and his co-workers quit their jobs one after another due to mental diseases.

A woman working in the medical industry as a full-time employee suddenly had her pay reduced by 30%. She said that her company employs only one worker other than her and refuses to install a punch clock in the workplace. A union counselor advised her to join a general workers union and bargain collectively with the management.

In Osaka, all four telephone lines at a counseling center were busy all morning. There were many complaints about unpaid overtime, and power and sexual harassment.

In Kochi Prefecture, a female clerical employee working for 20 years said, “My boss harasses me by ordering me to rewrite business documents 10 to 15 times.” A 63-year-old man complained, “Our employer neither pays for overtime work before the fixed starting time nor conducts medical examinations for workers.”