In a Tokyo District Court ruling expected to reverberate around the nation’s fast food industry, McDonald’s Japan was Monday ordered to pay overtime wages to a restaurant manager.Presiding Judge Iwao Saito ignored the fast food giant’s claim that store managers were exempt from overtime payments because they are in managerial positions and ordered it to pay about 7.55 million yen to a man who headed one of its Saitama Prefecture outlets.
Of the food retailer’s roughly 4,700 full time employees nationwide, some 1,700 are store managers, so Monday’s ruling is expected to have far-reaching consequences.
“From their administrative authority and remuneration, it’s not possible to say that store managers are part of corporate management,” Saito said as he handed down the ruling.?
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/national/news/20080128p2a00m0na024000c.html