The news about “karo-shi” in one of the largest advertising companies last autumn was a trigger for Japanese society to focus more on the work-time management. PMP issued several news-letters relating to this topic this year. Let us review it again with the latest information and be aware of the future possible changes.
#1. Will the labor law revision bill pass the National Diet soon?
You can find proposals relating to the labor law revision that were submitted to the 189th National Diet on the following homepage (in Japanese):
http://www.mhlw.go.jp/topics/bukyoku/soumu/houritu/189.html
The 193th National Diet was closed in June. Proposals relating to the labor law revision have been on hold for a long time, but we now expect discussions to start during the upcoming extraordinary session of the National Diet in autumn this year.
Mr. Kozu, the head of the Japanese Trade Union Confederation (“Rengo”), agreed on July 13th 2017 to the proposed labor law revision by the government with a condition to add health management plans as part of the amendment. He, however, changed his opinion and officially opposed the government central executive committee on July 27th after receiving strong esistance from his Rengo organization to the proposal.
Details of the proposed labor law revisions can be found on the homepage above. The proposals are focused on the ideas to (1) exempt from work-time management those employees deemed to be highly skilled professionals with an annual income over Y10,750k, and (2) expand eligibilities of a business type discretionary working hours system (“Kikaku Gyomu Gata Sairyo Roudou”) to a broader population of employees.
Highly skilled professionals under the traditional Japanese labor law structure are bound by work-time management where salary is paid based on the number of hours worked, and not on the actual outcome of the individuals’ performance. Such structures are rare outside of Japan. PMP believes that companies should cease placing an emphasis on overtime as a form of employee income but rather focus on monitoring time management to secure the health and wellbeing of employees by avoiding excessive working hours.
#2. Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has announced the upper limit restriction on working hours which was proposed by its Labor Policy Council. You can find the details on the following homepage (in Japanese):
http://www.mhlw.go.jp/file/04-Houdouhappyou-11201250-Roudoukijunkyoku-Roudoujoukenseisakuka/0000166797.pdf
Here is a summary of the proposal.
In short, the current 36 Kyotei with special conditions will be changed in several ways:
(1) Excessive working hours over the statutory working hours should remain 45 hours per month or 360 hours per year.
(2) Exceptions to the above shall only be accepted when:
(a) Annual maximum excessive working hours do not exceed 720 hours;
(b) Monthly maximum excessive working hours do not exceed 100 hours including working on holidays;
(c) Maximum excessive working hours for a period between 2 months and 6 months does not exceed 80 hours including working on holidays; and
(d) Months with excessive working hours exceeding 45 hours occur a maximum of 6 times in one year.
In addition, measurements for securing the health and wellbeing of individuals working under business type discretionary work hours scheme shall be put in place. The measurement requires an employer to: provide employees with a substitute holiday or additional holiday; provide employees with necessary medical checkups; encourage employees to take consecutive annual leave; set up a point of contact for employees to discuss physical and mental health issues; provide job/role transfer if necessary; provide employees with Company doctors’ health guidance or interview after periods of long working hours; restrict late night work; or set up further measurements to promote employees’ health ie: introducing an efficient “intermission” between the end of work on one day and a starting time on the next day to provide employees enough time to rest.
Both #1 and #2 above are revisions to the Labor Standards Law. Back in June this year, those two revisions were considered as two separate proposals to the National Diet where the first proposal on highly skilled professionals would be discussed first, and introduction of upper limit of excessive working hours shall come later with a planned implementation date in 2019. However, due to the serious setback in a consensus building within the Rengo in July, the revised plan now is to advocate two proposals together in the upcoming extraordinary session of the National Diet.
This means that the 36 Kyotei, which is the principle of the labor time management in Japan, may change sometime soon. As a result, each company may be required to evaluate their time management schemes, and to review the whole structure that is currently in place.
Thank you.