The Tokyo District Court on Monday ordered McDonald’s Co. (Japan) Ltd. to pay more than 7.5 million yen in unpaid overtime wages to the manager of an outlet in Saitama Prefecture, saying the man is not considered to actually be in a managerial position.
Presiding Judge Iwao Saito said McDonald’s outlet managers’ discretion is limited within outlets and the position is not considered a managerial post that integrally works with company owners.
Observers say the ruling is significant in that it would impact about 1,700 managers of the hamburger chain’s direct-run outlets and other management-labor disputes. Similar lawsuits have been filed by managers of chain bookstores and moneylenders, but this is the first ruling that would affect such a large number of employees of a single company.
Hiroshi Takano, the manager of McDonald’s 125 Kumagaya outlet in Kumagaya, Saitama Prefecture, was seeking about 13.5 million yen as compensation for two years of unpaid overtime plus damages.
Joining the company in 1987, Takano was promoted to outlet manager in 1999.
As outlet manager, Takano, 46, still has to work from early morning until late at night, cooking and attending to customers. Though his overtime exceeded 100 hours some months, the company stopped paying overtime wages, claiming that Takano was in a managerial position.
The issue in contention in the suit was whether McDonald’s outlet managers are considered to be in corporate managerial positions.
The Labor Standards Law obliges employers to pay overtime for those who have worked longer than eight hours a day or 40 hours per week, and on holidays. However, the stipulation is not applied to “those in managerial or supervisory positions.”
Japanese fluency could ease visa conditions
SKILLED FOREIGN WORKERS TARGETED
Conditions for resident visa status of skilled foreign workers such as engineers may be relaxed if they attain a certain level of proficiency in Japanese, government sources said Monday.
The measures, including shortening the required number of years of work experience required, are being considered both to increase the variety of foreign workers being accepted in Japan and to encourage more foreigners to study Japanese, the sources said.
The relaxed conditions would be applicable to foreigners who want to enter Japan for specialist or technical jobs, they said.
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.
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.
Wage row erupts between strawberry farms, sacked Chinese apprentices
A dispute has erupted between a group of Chinese apprentices and strawberry farms in Japan after one farm sacked a group of students and tried to force them to leave the country.A total of 15 apprentices have fled from the farm operators and are demanding a total of about 52.25 million yen in unpaid wages for the past three years.Sources close to the case said that the 15 male apprentices, from China’s Shandong and Heilongjiang provinces, came to Japan in the spring of 2005 as farm trainees. After one year of training, they got work at seven strawberry farms and expected to continue their jobs until this spring.
However, in December last year the Choboen strawberry farm in Tsuga informed five of the apprentices that they were being dismissed due to a poor harvest. The farm had a guard accompany them and put them on a bus to Narita Airport and tried to make them return to China, which caused a scuffle to break out.
The five apprentices contacted the Tokyo-based Zentoitsu Workers Union [an ally of NUGW Tokyo Nambu], which supports foreign trainees and skilled apprentices, and 10 foreign workers from six other farms joined up with them afterwards.
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/national/news/20080129p2a00m0na022000c.html
McDonalds ordered to pay restaurant manager overtime
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
Shaping the future as an immigrant nation
JAPAN’S POPULATION DECLINE
“By 2050, Japan’s population will have shrunk from the current 127 million to about 90 million, and to about 40 million by the end of the century. By my calculations, we need 10 million new immigrants by midcentury to survive as a nation,” Hidenori Sakanaka, former head of the Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau, said at a recent symposium in Osaka on Japan’s future as an immigrant nation.?
Over the past few years, as the reality of the combination of a declining birthrate and rapidly aging population set in, politicians, the Justice Ministry, and powerful business lobbies like the Japan Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren) have offered various proposals on how certain numbers of skilled foreign workers might be admitted.
Estimates by the government, the United Nations and various human rights groups have shown that, in order to maintain current living standards and economic output, Japan will need up to 30 million foreigners by 2050.
But over the past few years, most government proposals for bringing in foreign laborers have emphasized limiting their numbers and the length of time they are allowed to stay.
Sakanaka and other immigration experts worry such thinking will lead to policies that will discourage ? rather than encourage ? foreign workers from coming to Japan.
Foreigner registration system to be revised
May lead to better services, more control
Under the new system, long-term foreign residents will get registration cards at airports and local immigration offices, which will then be used to register their information at local governments.
The data will be controlled in a similar manner as for Japanese citizens, and used to compile information for taxation, health insurance programs and census-taking. Special permanent residents, including those in Japan before the war and their descendants, are also expected to be listed in the new registry system.
Makoto Miyaguchi, an official of Minokamo, Gifu Prefecture, which has a large Brazilian population, said the current law is not sufficient to provide administrative services for foreigners in his city.
“Since the current system does not gather detailed information, we have often been unable to give adequate services for foreigners in the area,” including school guidance for parents and information on welfare services, he said.
Approximately 10 percent, or 50,000 residents, in Minokamo are registered foreigners.
Miyaguchi said that both his city and its foreign population will benefit from the overall detailed management, since it will be able to better track locations and the status of foreign individuals and households.
But while some suggest that the new system will view foreigners as legitimate residents instead of objects of supervision, others say it will only strengthen government control over foreigners while providing minimal improvement in their lives.
Japan to adopt new register system for foreigners
The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications and the Ministry of Justice have decided to abolish the Alien Registration Act’s system of residence administration, and adopt a register system similar to the basic resident register system for Japanese, it has been learned.Registration of foreigners under the act, which formerly involved fingerprinting, will end and certificates of alien registration for special permanent residents such as North and South Koreans residing in Japan will be done away with, though it is yet undecided whether new certificates will be issued in their place.
Both ministries plan to establish a framework plan for the new system by the end of March, and submit related bills to regular Diet sessions next year.
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/national/news/20080125p2a00m0na004000c.html
Japanese gov’t looks at tighter controls on foreigners
Japan is looking to tighten controls on foreign residents to crack down on undocumented aliens and ensure that all households receive public services, Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama said Friday.
Japan largely sees itself as ethnically homogeneous and has consistently rejected wide-scale immigration despite having one of the world’s lowest birth rates.
It requires foreign residents to carry registration cards which are issued by municipal offices.
The system is often criticized as ineffective as foreigners do not need to re-register when moving and local offices often do not check with the central Immigration Bureau on applicants’ legal status.
“It doesn’t make sense that the foreign registration card is issued to people the Immigration Bureau considers illegal stayers,” Hatoyama told reporters.
He said the ministry is looking at “integrating administration concerning immigration control and registration of foreign residents.”
Specifically, the government is considering a new identification card issued by the central government and requiring residents to register every change of address, a ministry official said.
But the official said the government will likely exempt Koreans and Chinese whose families have resided in Japan for generations and currently still have to carry foreigners’ cards.
Some 700,000 Koreans live in Japan, mostly a legacy of those who immigrated or were enslaved during colonial rule, forming the largest minority group.
Human rights groups have long argued that the registration system prevents people of foreign origin from integrating in Japan.
Local authorities used to collect fingerprints of all foreign residents, even if their families lived in Japan for generations, under a system abolished in 2000.
But Japan last year started fingerprinting foreigners when they enter the country under a US-inspired system to prevent terrorists from entering.
Komeito leader welcomes Ozawa’s proposal to give foreigners voting rights
Kazuo Kitagawa, secretary-general of ruling coalition partner Komeito, has voiced support for opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) leader Ichiro Ozawa’s suggestion of considering submitting a bill to give foreigners with permanent residence status the right to vote in local elections.”I would like a bill to be compiled and submitted,” Kitagawa said of the proposed move, adding that there had been arguments against it within the DPJ. “If they compiled it I would welcome that,” he said.
In a news conference on Tuesday, Ozawa said, “I’ve stressed before that the right for foreigners to vote in local elections should be granted. I’ve been criticized by long-time supporters, but the bottom line doesn’t change.”
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/national/news/20080124p2a00m0na011000c.html