Japan reels after death revelation

Broadcaster NHL apologizes as details of karoshi case go public

TOKYO — Japan’s public broadcaster on Friday apologized to the parents of a reporter who died of heart failure after logging 159 hours of overtime in a month.

NHK reporter Miwa Sado, 31, who had been covering political news in Tokyo, was found dead in her bed in July 2013, reportedly clutching her mobile phone.

A government inquest a year after her death ruled that it was linked to excessive overtime. She had taken two days off in the month before she died.

NHK eventually made the case public four years later, bowing to pressure from Sado’s parents to take action to prevent a recurrence.

The case has again highlighted the Japanese problem of karoshi — meaning death from overwork — and is an embarrassing revelation for NHK, which has campaigned against the nation’s longhours culture.

Sato covered Tokyo assembly elections for the broadcaster in June 2013 and an upper-house vote for the national parliament the following month.

She died three days after the upper-house election.

The revelation shocked the nation as NHK has actively reported tragic deaths at other companies, including the 2015 suicide of a young woman at major advertising agency Dentsu who logged more than 100 hours of overtime in one month.

A Tokyo court on Friday ordered Dentsu to pay 500,000 yen ($4,430) as a penalty for allowing its employees, including the young woman, to illegally work excessive overtime hours.

NHK’s chief has pledged to improve working conditions.

“We are sorry that we lost an excellent reporter and take seriously the fact that her death was recognized as workrelated,” president Ryoichi Ueda said on Thursday.

“We will continue to work for reform in cooperation with her parents.”

According to a government report on death from overwork released on Friday, there were 191 karoshi cases in the year ending March 2017.

In an attempt to tackle the problem, the government in May released its first nationwide employer blacklist, naming-and-shaming more than 300 companies including Dentsu and an arm of Panasonic for breaching labor laws.

In February, Japan launched “Premium Friday”, calling on employees to knock off early on the last Friday of the month.

But critics slammed the plan as it was not mandatory and several companies simply opted out.