Worked to death: now Japanese firms are named and shamed

JAPAN has released its first nationwide employer blacklist, naming and shaming more than 300 companies for breaking labour laws as Tokyo ramps up efforts to tackle notoriously long work hours blamed for “karoshi”, or death from overwork.

The labour ministry’s list released this week called out hundreds of firms, including advertising giant Dentsu and an arm of Panasonic, for illegal overtime and other workplace contraventions. The top executive at Dentsu quit late last year in response to the suicide of a young employee who often logged more than 100 hours of overtime a month.

Matsuri Takahashi’s death generated nationwide headlines, prompting the government to come up with a solution to punishing work hours that have been blamed for hundreds of deaths due to strokes, heart attacks and suicides every year.

Many companies on the labour ministry list — a compilation of publicly available data — are construction groups accused of safety infractions, such as having employees work without proper protection or letting them operate heavy machinery without being certified to do so.

It was unclear what impact the tactic would have on firms’ behaviour. The list named fewer than a dozen companies in the capital Tokyo for contravening labour law. A panel headed by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe this year came up with a plan calling on employers to limit overtime to a maximum of 100 hours a month, which critics slammed as still too high. Japanese companies can compel full-time employees to work far beyond the usual 40 hours a week during busy periods.

Overtime is viewed as a sign of dedication at many firms, even if Japanese workers’ productivity lags that of their US and European counterparts.

More than one in five Japanese companies have employees whose tendency to overwork puts them at serious risk of dying, according to a government survey published in October. — AFP