The Kumamoto District Court awarded more than ¥17 million in damages Friday to four Chinese interns who were forced to work long hours for low wages in Kumamoto Prefecture.
The court ordered that the union Plaspa Apparel, which arranged the trainee work for the four, to pay ¥4.4 million and that the actual employer, a sewing agency, pay ¥12.8 million in unpaid wages.
It is the first ruling that held a job broker for foreign trainees liable for their hardships, according to lawyers representing the four interns.
The four female Chinese trainees, aged 22 to 25, engaged in sewing from early morning to late evening with only two or three days off a month after arriving in Japan in 2006, according to the court.
Overtime
McDonald’s told to pay overtime to manager
The Tokyo District Court ordered McDonald’s Holdings Co. (Japan) Ltd. Monday to pay ¥7.55 million in overtime allowance and “additional pay” to a manager at one of its outlets.
Presiding Judge Iwao Saito ruled that Hiroshi Takano, 46, who manages a McDonald’s outlet in Saitama Prefecture, does not qualify as a manager under the Labor Standards Law and thus deserves overtime pay.
The law stipulates that employers must pay overtime allowances to employees who work more than eight hours a day and 40 hours a week. However, the regulation does not apply to people in managerial positions.
Saito said employees in management positions must be able to wield significant authority and receive privileged treatment, including higher pay. Takano neither played such an important role for the company nor received better pay, he said.
According to the court, the average annual salary of McDonald’s shop managers stood at ¥7.07 million in 2005. But the salaries varied, with some 10 percent of managers receiving only ¥5.79 million, a level lower than the average annual salary of assistant shop managers, based on evaluations. Assistant shop managers meanwhile qualify for overtime pay.
After Takano was promoted to shop manager in October 1999, his salary dropped because he was not allowed to claim overtime allowances. As a result, his annual wage fell by 17 percent in 2005, compared with the ¥7.59 million he earned in 1999.
The court ordered the company to pay Takano ¥7.55 million — ¥5.03 million in overtime pay and ¥2.52 million in additional pay.
“I was confident that I could win this suit, but I wonder why it took two years,” Takano said after the ruling. “I want the company to take today’s ruling sincerely. I also hope this decision will have a positive effect on other shop managers.”
The ruling could deal a major blow to McDonald’s Japan, which has some 1,700 managers at its outlets directly run by the firm, like Takano, said Ichiro Natsume, one of his lawyers.
McDonald’s issued a statement saying that it was regrettable the court did not accept its arguments and that it is considering filing an appeal.
Takano, who was hired in 1987, filed a suit in December 2005 with the district court, claiming the company should pay him about ¥5.17 million in overtime allowances and the same amount as “additional pay” to cover between December 2003 and November 2005.
The additional pay is regarded as a punitive fine to employers who break the law. During the period, he worked 60 to 80 hours of overtime a month, and he could not take any paid holidays for 63 days from Nov. 24, 2004, through Jan. 25, 2005. He also sought ¥3 million in compensation for mental suffering — a claim rejected by the court.
McDonald’s argued that Takano should be regarded as a manager because he oversaw dozens of employees and received wages commensurate with his responsibilities.
Momoyo Kamo, chairwoman of the Japan Community Union Federation, said the ruling will have an influence not only on McDonald’s shop managers but also other workers in similar situations.
“This ruling will encourage them to raise their voices,” she said.
34 foreign trainees in Japan died in FY 2008 of suspected overwork
Thirty-four foreign trainees died in Japan in fiscal 2008 through March this year, up 13 from the previous year to hit a record high, a survey by a government-linked body promoting a training program showed Monday.
The leading causes of their deaths were brain and heart diseases, which claimed the lives of 16, while five were killed in accidents at work and four in traffic accidents. Supporters of foreign trainees said they suspect those who died from brain and heart disorders actually died from overwork. As of late 2007, about 177,000 foreigners have been staying in Japan under the government’s industrial training and technical internship program.
Shoichi Ibusuki, a lawyer supporting foreign trainees and interns, pointed out that many trainees have been forced to work long hours for lower wages and said he suspects they had died from overwork.
Ibusuki and other supporters submitted a written inquiry to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry on Monday, asking it to investigate the causes of the trainees’ deaths and to state how the ministry will deal with the issue.
A labor ministry official said it is not clear why those trainees had developed brain and heart diseases, but expressed willingness to examine their working hours and living conditions.
Following the submission of the inquiry, three Chinese trainees complained about their working conditions at a press conference held in Tokyo.
Ding Jianhui, 35, who came to Japan in September 2006 on the training program, said he had to work overtime for 100 to 130 hours a month at his job selling scrap metal and only received 110,000 yen per month after tax.
‘‘I lived in a container that was not equipped with a bathroom and was treated as cheap labor. My back is still numb,’’ said Ding, who claims he was suddenly dismissed from work late last year.
Jiang Xiangyi, 34, said although he had been told he would be engaging in a carpentry job before he came to Japan, his actual work was dismantling and removing asbestos, which can cause lung cancer.
Jiang said he sometimes worked 26 days a month but was only paid 60,000 yen after tax. ‘‘The type of work was different from what I heard and I didn’t know about the danger of asbestos. I was cheated,’’ he said.
Keidanren Tells Japan’s Salarymen to Work Less, Have More Kids
Keidanren, Japan’s biggest business organization, is worried the nation’s workers aren’t having enough sex.
The group urged its 1,632 member companies to start so- called family weeks that give employees more time for playing with the kids and having more children to reverse a declining birth rate. A survey by Japan’s Family Planning Association of about 3,000 married people under age 49 shows couples are having less sex because long work days leave them with too little energy.
In a country where people over 65 will outnumber children two-to-one in five years, companies say they eventually won’t have enough workers. Japan’s birth rate has been falling since 1972 and threatens to shrink the labor force 16 percent by 2030 from 66.6 million workers in 2006, according to the health ministry.
“You must go home early,” Nippon Oil Corp. President Shinji Nishio told staff in a speech for the company’s two-week family campaign, which ends Nov. 22. “The dwindling birthrate and the aging population, along with the responsibility of educating the next generation — these aren’t just somebody else’s problem. We expect all workers’ active participation.”
At Nippon Oil, Japan’s largest refiner, staffers have been forbidden to work on weekends and must get permission to stay past 7 p.m. Textile maker Toray Industries Inc. and All Nippon Airways Co. also hold family weeks this month.
Each evening at 8 p.m. at Nippon Oil’s Tokyo headquarters, the tune ‘When You Wish Upon a Star” blares from loudspeakers. The theme song from Walt Disney Co.’s 1940 movie “Pinocchio,” about a puppet that wanted to be human, is meant to pull at workers’ heartstrings and remind them they should be home with the people they love, said Takefumi Koga, group manager of labor relations.
Drinking Sessions
Colleagues took advantage of the extra time off to arrange after-work drinking sessions, but Koga, 45, the father of two girls, said he managed to rebuff the invitations and go home to his family in the suburbs of Tokyo. When he unexpectedly turned up for dinner, his daughter asked him if he was unwell.
“My family and myself felt awkward at first, but it’s nice to spend the time together,” Koga said. “But I can’t go home earlier every day.”
Spending more time at home may make some white-collar workers, known as salarymen, uneasy in a country where long days and short holidays are the norm. Japan’s average work week in 2006 was the third-longest among industrialized countries after South Korea and the U.S., according to the International Labor Organization, the United Nations agency based in Geneva.
Workers opted to take less than half of their paid vacation last year, averaging just 8.3 days, according to the labor ministry. The word ‘karoshi’ has entered the vocabulary to describe the phenomenon of death from overwork.
Tired and Bored
“It’s a tough challenge for workers, especially the middle-aged ones who have been taught industriousness is the most important virtue,” said Dr. Kunio Kitamura, chairman of the Family Planning Association, who gave details of the survey on married couples at a conference last week. “Going home earlier, if they can put it into action, is a way to fix the declining birthrate.”
Japanese couples are giving up on sex, according to the report, which will be submitted to the Ministry of Health and Welfare next year.
Of the married couples surveyed in 2008, 36.5 percent hadn’t had sex in the previous month, up from 34.6 percent in 2006 and 31.9 percent in 2004, Kitamura said. The couples complained they were too tired from their jobs, or that sex is “boring.”
“The advice for sexless couples is to spend more time together,” Kitamura said. “Just being around, even watching TV in the same room, would be a good start.”
Labor Pains
The country’s birth rate, the average number of children a woman has during her lifetime, started falling in 1972, and stood at 1.34 in 2007, well below the 2.07 required for a stable population, according to the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research.
“People are the country’s resource,” said Rie Sako, deputy manager of the Tokyo-based National Quality of Life Group that promotes the family weeks at the Keidanren business lobby. “To sustain our standard of living it’s important to stem the contraction in population.”
Family weeks are only a first step, Sako said. Leaders of Japanese companies need to get behind efforts to reduce hours throughout the year.
At Nippon Oil, family weeks are just one of the measures the company has introduced to try to reduce overtime, in part to decrease costs and improve efficiency. In October last year the company started a “Sayonara Overwork” campaign, and posted signs in offices listing eight ways to go home earlier.
Like his colleague Koga, Risuke Shimizu, 37, a Nippon Oil spokesman, has had to resist the temptation to drop by a bar instead of going straight home during family weeks, he said. Normally he gets back so late his two young children are already asleep.
“They came to the front door to welcome me home when I came back earlier during the weeks,” he said. “It’s quite good.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=a6qq53CVLzUg&refer=home
Convenience stores, chain restaurants warned about unpaid overtime
Over 80 percent of managers at convenience stores and chain restaurants that had labor problems in the past are forced to work long hours without corresponding overtime pay, a government survey has found.
The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, which conducted the survey, has issued a warning to convenience stores and chain restaurants to correct the working conditions of their store managers.
The ministry’s warning issued on Tuesday indicated that anyone working under the following conditions should not be deemed as managers: Those not having the authority to employ part-time workers; those paid less than the minimum wage in terms of hourly wages; and those who cannot order their subordinates to work overtime.
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20080910p2a00m0na006000c.html
Standards set for ‘name-only’ store managers
The labor ministry on Tuesday signaled its intention to scrutinize companies that appoint workers as store managers to avoid paying overtime, while giving them little or no managerial authority.
The practice is especially widespread in the restaurant and retail sectors where many so-called managers are required to work long hours.
The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare issued a notice to regional labor bureaus that includes specific standards to determine if “managers” of restaurants and retail outlets are actually managing.
Yoichi Masuzoe, the labor minister, said Tuesday: “Forcing an individual to work long hours at low pay is unacceptable. We will proceed with further improvements.”
The last time the labor ministry issued a notice defining standards for managers in a specific industry was 1977 when it targeted the banking industry.
The topic of store managers in name-only attracted national attention in January when the Tokyo District Court ordered McDonald’s Co. (Japan) to pay a store manager overtime pay because he had no actual management authority.
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200809090336.html
Japanese only take average of 8 days paid vacation a year
According to the questionnaire conducted in Japan as well as in eight countries in Europe and North America, the Japanese only took an annual average of eight paid holidays — smaller than any other country questioned. France topped the list with 34 days, followed by Italy and Spain with 27 paid days off annually.
Among the reasons why Japanese employees can’t take paid holidays were, “Too busy with work” and “Their bosses and colleagues have yet to take their paid leave,” the survey found. When asked what countermeasures should be introduced to deal with the problem, most people said, “Managers should encourage workers to take more paid holidays.” The survey has underscored the importance of creating an environment that makes it easy for employees to take paid leave.
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20080903p2a00m0na006000c.html
Taking time off not so easy
“The disparity in how much time workers can take off or how much money they can spend for leisure has been widening. As for leisure time, the amount of overtime hours has been increasing among permanent employees, while the mass retirement of baby boomers also had an impact,” said Hisaya Yanagita, a senior researcher at the JPCSED.
“However, the disparity has been growing between generations, and women in their 30s, many of whom are raising children or working part-time jobs, tend to be polarized in how much leisure time they can have or how much they can spend on leisure activities,” he said.
It also has become difficult for employees to use annual paid holidays, which are secured by the Labor Standards Law.
On average, employees took 46.6 percent of their paid holidays in 2007, when the average number of annual paid holidays was 17.7 days, a record low. The rate has been declining since it peaked in 1993, when employees took 56.1 percent of their paid holidays.
These survey results reflect an apparent employee mentality that workplaces make it difficult for them to use paid holidays, while the results also shed light on structural problems in workplaces, as shown by those who said it was difficult to find someone to take over their duties while on vacation, that they couldn’t take holidays because of heavy workload or that they wanted to leave some paid holidays in case of illness or other unanticipated situations.
Labor must together fight ‘name-only’ ploys
“Eliminate long work hours! Store managers in name only deserve dignity.” Such calls were heard loud and clear at a recent rally in Tokyo attended by more than 200 people.
In fact, there was such a large turnout, there weren’t enough seats for everyone.
Branch managers of outlets of chain stores such as McDonald’s Co. (Japan), menswear retailer Konaka Co. and Ninety-nine Plus Inc., which runs Shop 99 convenience stores, all spoke at the event. They described the long hours and harsh working conditions that led each of them to stand up for fair treatment and demand redress.
The day after the rally, McDonald’s announced it would pay overtime allowances to managers of stores under its direct management starting in August under a new pay scheme.
It was a hollow victory.
The company, on the other hand, explained that its overall payroll costs won’t rise as it will abolish the store manager allowance. (McDonald’s, however, said later, in June, that it will delay the introduction of the new pay scheme for a couple of years in the face of the objections. It also said it will start paying overtime to store managers in August as pledged).
It’s an old trick, one done by many companies–to manipulate itemized salaries so that employers can seem to rectify nonpayment of overtime work. As long as such sleight-of-hand methods to evade the spirit of the law are tolerated, no one will bother to challenge top executives who don’t pay overtime.
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200807230065.html
McDonald’s to pay managers overtime
McDonald’s Holdings Co. (Japan) said Tuesday it will introduce a system Aug. 1 to provide overtime pay to some 2,000 outlet managers and area market developers across the country who have not been getting paid for extra work hours.
The move comes after the Tokyo District Court ruled in January that the fast-food chain should pay its outlet managers for overtime because they are given no administrative authority. Granting such authority is usually the criteria that allows companies not to pay overtime to managers.
The media have taken to calling outlet managers “managers in name only.”
The court ordered the company to pay ¥7.5 million in overtime to outlet manager Hiroshi Takano, 47, who had sued the firm.