Japan vows no more deaths from ‘karoshi’

KIM HO-JIN, CEO of anti-revenge porn company Santa Cruise TOKYO: A sports official promised yesterday to work with the builder of a showpiece stadium for the 2020 Olympics to stamp out “death by overwork”, a designation authorities applied last week to the suicide of a stadium worker.

The parents of the 23-year-old petitioned the government this year to recognise his suicide as karoshi — or “death by overwork”, with media saying he had worked 200 hours of overtime a month before his death.

“To our regret, illegal overtime was recognised as a result of inspection by the Labour Ministry,” said Tadashi Mochizuki, director of stadium manager the Japan Sport Council (JSC), which was part of a joint venture with construction firm Taisei Corp.

“We, JSC and Taisei, took it sincerely and we’ll do the utmost (to comply with the law) in proceeding with construction.”

Authorities unveiled a model of the new stadium here, which is set to be completed in November 2019, after construction begun in December last year.

Japan’s fast-ageing society has left employers grappling with an acute labour shortage. It recognises two types of karoshi: cardiovascular illness linked to overwork, and suicide following mental stress related to work.

Employers face few curbs on overtime and pay, so more than a fifth of company staff exceeded a government overtime threshold of 80 hours a month, a white paper showed last year.

To tackle the problem, the government plans sweeping reforms, including overtime caps and better pay for workers. Reuters