The flip side of coveted public-sector jobs in Japan: fewer rights

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Pop quiz: Which of these types of government worker has the right to strike — tax inspectors, schoolteachers, firefighters or public health workers? Answer: None of the above, thanks to an Occupation-era law designed to tamp down the influence of communism. | KYODO

I research labor law and teach it to university students. In the first class, I break up the two groups of labor laws — those related to individual and collective labor relations — for my students. Individual labor relations law begins and ends with the 1947 Labor Standards Act (rōdō kijun hō); its collective counterpart is surely the 1950 Trade Union Act (rōdō kumiai hō).

About 99.9 percent of my 18-20-year-olds look blank the first time they hear the word “rōdō kumiai,” or labor union. Some of them have arubaito (part-time jobs) and thus already have become rōdōsha (workers) protected by labor laws, but they have not heard of labor unions and have no idea what such a creature looks like. I have my work cut out trying to explain to them the concepts of labor unions, collective bargaining and striking.

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ちゃんととろう、有給休暇

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SKYPICSSTUDIO | ISTOCK

年次有給休暇（以下、有休）。それは労働者にとって、「完全なる労働からの解放日」である。心身共に健康に、長く安定して働くためにも、きちんと休暇をとる権利を休むことはとても大切なことだ。しかしながら、有給休暇をとるために不必要に高いハードルを設定したり、チクチクと嫌みをいって、休暇をとることをためらわせたりする職場も、残念ながら存在する。

とくに、学校の先生やスクールの講師など、「お客様＝生徒」である場合にそうした傾向が多いようだ。つまり、「お前は生徒のことよりも、自分の休みを優先させるのか？！」といった、自己犠牲を強いるような空気である。先生が充分に休暇をとれないで自己犠牲的に働いたとしても、決して良い授業などできないのに…。

ということで、今回は、「労働者がきちんと夏のバケーションを楽しむことができる」ために、有給休暇の制度について、改めて振り返っておこう。ここからは、よく相談を受ける質問に答える形で進めていく。

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A week’s worth of questions about paid leave

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SKYPICSSTUDIO | ISTOCK

Paid leave. The long form in Japanese is nenji yūkyū kyūka; the short form is yūkyū. For workers, yūkyū is a day of “complete liberation from toil,” as one scholar put it.

The right to rest fully is vital in ensuring that workers enjoy long, healthy and anxiety-free lives. Unfortunately, some employers do all they can to discourage their employees from actually taking paid leave, setting up artificial obstacles, insinuating they are lazy and using peer pressure to keep them at their work stations.

I myself teach at a university, and many of my members at Tozen Union are also teachers. I find that teachers in particular find it very difficult to freely take paid leave, and many more are unaware of the government’s guarantee of paid leave. Foreign teachers in particular may be unfamiliar with the law.

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‘Same work, same pay’ goal may spark a race to the bottom

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Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has recently come out to make the case for “same work, same pay.” Call me a cynic, but I suspect an ulterior motive. For years, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s policies have focused on helping prop up struggling corporations and their managers, with working people treated as more of a nuisance. It is therefore hard to believe that the LDP has suddenly grown a heart that aches over the travails of millions of unemployed, underemployed, underpaid, unpaid and otherwise un-somethinged workers.

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労働実態踏まえ社保加入認める…東京地裁判決

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労働時間が正社員の４分の３未満であることを理由に社会保険の加入資格を失うのは不当として、東京都内の英会話学校に勤める男性講師が日本年金機構に加入資格の確認を求めた訴訟で、東京地裁は１７日、男性は保険に加入できるとの判決を言い渡した。舘内比佐志裁判長は、労働時間だけでなく報酬額や職務内容などを総合的に考慮して「加入資格があった」と判断した。

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Tozen Union Wins Berlitz Pension Suit, but …

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June 17th, 2016 1:25 PM
Tokyo District Court on Friday overturned Japan’s Pension Agency’s 2011 decision rejecting Tozen member Yancey Co’s appeal to enroll in Japan’s shakai hoken health and pension scheme.

Co’s employer Berlitz Japan had kicked him off shakai hoken in 2008, after his work hours apparently fell below 30 hours per week in the wake of the global financial crisis.

The 30-hour, or 3/4 of a full timer, threshold can be found nowhere in labor law but rather in the agency’s internal memo dated June 6, 1980.

The English language instructor from Vancouver, Canada, had asked the agency to force Berlitz to enroll him but through three appeals the agency ruled against him.

Undeterred, Co sued the agency in January 2012. “I wanted part-timers to have the right to enroll.”image

After four and a half years of litigation, Tozen Union sees the Friday victory as a partial victory only.

“We insisted that the memo has no legal force and should not be used to kick someone off shakai hoken,” said Louis Carlet, an executive of Tozen Union. “We were hoping the court would declare the memo illegal. Unfortunately the judge didn’t go that far.”

Tozen Attorney Shoichi Ibuski said, “This is one step forward and we hope to use this to go further still.”

(See video presentation below.)

English:

Japanese:

Japan is not an “at will” employment country.

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Many of our members are not Japanese and work at small or very small companies. Working at small companies has many advantages: it’s often more human and you have a direct relationship with the boss. However, if there are problems, those good points often turn into bad ones, since you can be on the receiving end of arbitrary decisions that are difficult to remedy, especially if you do not know your rights. Let’s take an example of a common problem that we at Tozen have to deal with quite often: illegal dismissal.

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Harcèlement sexuel au Japon : «C’était mon supérieur et je devais obéir»

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Elles ne donneront pas leur nom et n’apparaîtront pas en photo. La honte, la timidité, le «dégoût» de soi et la peur de perdre leur emploi sont toujours vifs. Il leur a donc fallu «beaucoup d’énergie pour trouver la force de parler», de nommer les choses et de préciser les gestes. Avant de porter plainte et d’entreprendre une action en justice, qui aura peut-être une issue ce mardi lors d’une nouvelle audience au tribunal de Kobe.

A.T. et Y.T. ont toutes les deux 24 ans et leur histoire illustre comment le harcèlement sexuel peut être, au Japon également, une réalité aussi triviale que répandue dans le monde du travail. En mars, un rapport du gouvernement révélait qu’un tiers des employées étaient harcelées sexuellement. Sur les 1 700 femmes qui ont accepté de répondre à l’enquête, 40 % citaient des cas d’attouchements non désirés. Et 63 % ont choisi de ne rien dire.

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