Death by Overwork: Beyond Industry 4.0 in Japan

Abstract

12 | International Union Rights | 25/3 Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has promoted a policy package called the ‘Work Style Reform’, in association with a ‘Society 5.0 Strategy’, collaborating with the CEO of the Hitachi group, Hiroaki Nakanishi, who was appointed President of the Japan Business Federation (JBF) in May 2018. Society 5.0 is defined as the fifth formation of society (after Hunting, Agrarian, Industrial and Information stages of society). The concept is hard to comprehend, as JBF President Nakanishi admitted, as it should be recognised as a system that consists of combining cyber space and physical space. The Society 5.0 strategy mentions the development of automated driving systems using artificial intelligence, referring to Toyota by name. Akiyo Toyoda, CEO of Toyota, says now is the time for a great transformation in the century of the electric vehicle and automated driving system or connected system. He emphasises that his company not only competes with auto rivals, but also with IT companies like Google, Apple or Amazon. Overtime Crisis: Karoshi The average annual working hours of Japanese workers is around 1900 hours - 600 hours more than in Germany, according to OECD data (excluding part-time workers). The Japanese word karoshi, death from overwork, is now included in the Oxford English Dictionary. The Ministry of Health, Welfare and Labour officially recognise approximately 200 cases a year as karoshi, which are entitled to be compensated through an official scheme. The number seems to have been stable over the years. The case of one young University of Tokyo graduate killed by overwork at Dentsu, one of Japan’s most powerful advertising firms, shocked Japanese society. Matsuri Takahashi jumped from the company apartment and killed herself on 24 December 2015. She wrote on Twitter: ‘It is 4am now. My body is shivering, may be dying. It is impossible to work anymore, too tired’. Her work record showed 130 hours and 99 hours overtime respectively in the two previous months. The Abe administration’s ‘Work Style Reform’, submitted to Parliament early this year, ostensibly aims to address excessive working hours in Japan. It introduces the so-called Highly Professional Work System and is backed by Japanese business, but opposed by labour confederations like Japanese Trade Union Confederation (JTUC RENGO) and Zenroren. A new law will be implemented from April 2019, which unions have labelled the ‘Zero Overtime Pay Act’. It destroys the principle of an eight-hour day and forty-hour week described in the existing Japanese labour law. Under the new law, no matter how long workers’ work, no overtime pay is paid to them. The law will allow a maximum of 100 hours overtime per month. This is well over the Ministry of Labour’s guidelines of 80 hours a month, above which is the de facto standard to recognise a death from overtime for official OSH accident recognition. In addition to unions, the association of families bereaved by karoshi requested a meeting with Prime Minister Abe. However, Abe refused to meet them. Work Everywhere, All the Time Even the legal 100-hour cap on overtime will not apply to certain designated jobs, such as Research and Development (R&D) workers. The rights and working conditions of R&D workers are now at stake. For them, there is no overtime limit. The Japanese auto industry’s need for R&D workers is greatly increasing. Toyota now largely accepts applications for work on production technology or next generation battery development. Toyota implemented a so-called ‘Free Time and Location’ (FTL) Innovation last December, which is regarded as a pre-emptive measure for the ‘Work Style Reform’. It aims to lift any limitation on place or time to work. A ‘section chief class’ worker may work 80 hours overtime per month, or 540 hours a year. For undertaking 45 hours overtime a month, they are supposed to be paid by 50 percent more. This means workers should compete with others on the assumption of overtime work. Toyota’s existing discretion work system lets workers decide when to sign-in and out and to manage their work schedule, based on a baseline of a nine-hour workday. Most workers who used the discretion system have now moved to FTL...