Japan Press Weekly

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2015 November 11 - 17 [LABOR]

60% of student part-timers experience unfair labor practices

More than 60% of university students who have worked in part-time jobs have experienced suffering from unfair labor practices, according to the Labor Ministry’s survey results published on November 9.

The ministry this summer conducted an online survey of 1,000 graduate and undergraduate college students. This was the ministry’s first survey on students working for “black corporations” that use workers under exploitative working conditions such as forcing them to work excessively long hours and overtime without pay.

Of a total of 1,961 employers the respondents worked for, 58.7% neglected to fulfill a legal obligation to inform the employees of working conditions in writing and 13.6% refused to pay for hours during which part-timers change their clothes and clean up after closing time, according to the survey results.

Commenting on the fact that the percentage of student workers who received unfair treatment from their employers exceeded 60%, the Labor Ministry said that it is a very high figure.

The ministry added that it will request business organizations and industrial groups of retailers and restaurants, which employ a large number of student part-timers, to abide by labor laws and to refrain from making unreasonable demands on workers.

The Japanese Communist Party in June of last year published a policy proposal to protect students from “black” part-time jobs. The party has repeatedly urged the government to address this issue in Diet discussions.

Past related article:
> ’Black part-time jobs’ exploit students [June 7, 2014]