Working efficiently in shorter hours and leading an enriched life both at home and at work. Employing a variety of personnel resources and dealing with the declining birthrate and aging society. In order to achieve these goals, it is vital to change the culture of working long hours. 

The Japan government’s plan for the dynamic engagement of all citizens and the Basic Policy on Economic and Fiscal Management and Reform, also referred to as the “big-boned policy,” regards reforming the culture of working as one of the major agenda items to push ahead with the Abenomics economic policy package. Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe emphasizes that this is “the biggest challenge” for his government.

The Liberal Democratic Party also lists “reform of labor practices” among its campaign pledges for the House of Councillors election in July.

Conventional employment practices, in which frequent overtime work is regarded as natural, have restricted the possibilities for workforce participation by women, who have been saddled with other time constraints including child-rearing and caregiving. This is reflected in the fact that a majority of working women are employed as non-regular workers, who are less privileged in terms of employment benefits.

Long working hours are also a primary factor impeding men from being engaged in child-rearing and household chores.

Working in a way that does not balance family and work leads to anxiety over the future, resulting in sluggish consumption and the declining birthrate. This issue cannot be resolved by enriched child-rearing and nursing care services alone.

Correcting the practice of working long hours will help enhance the quality of labor and productivity of labor. Dynamic engagement of diverse personnel resources will also help spur innovation. The rectification of this practice will require efforts from both the public and private sectors.

As things stand, overtime work of more than 80 hours a month -- the threshold at which compensation for karoshi (death from overwork) is awarded -- can be allowed by the terms of labor-management agreements. It is appropriate that the plan for the dynamic engagement of all citizens has put forth a policy for reviewing this system. Review of the system must be accelerated with the aim of preventing death from overwork.

The plan also calls for establishing a system to clamp down on the conditions that force long hours on subcontractors who receive orders with extremely tight schedules for delivery.

Planning a specific system for these reforms have been left for future discussions. We urge the government to work steadily toward realizing the proposed reforms.

It is also essential to act quickly to pass an existing bill revising the Labor Standards Law to curb long hours. The bill would make businesses take responsibility for having their employees use paid holidays as well as introduce a compensation and employment system under which wages are awarded not by the hours worked but by the results of the work.

The Democratic Party and other opposition parties have denounced the bill as “one intended for setting overtime payment at zero.” This can be regarded as a one-sided view. In a bid to avoid confrontation with the opposition camp ahead of the upcoming upper house election, the ruling coalition decided early in the previous Diet session to put off the bill until the next Diet session. This is not a responsible attitude for the ruling camp to take.

More and more firms have introduced a system to set certain intervals between the closing and opening of business. The government’s support is necessary for the system to prevail.

Realization of the “equal pay for equal work” system under which wages do not differ depending on employment status is another important theme of the reform agenda. We want the ruling and opposition parties to deepen deliberations on the matter in their campaigns for the upper house election.

(The Japan News/Asia News Network)
Editorial