Japanese court rules Toyota employee died from too much work ...
11-30-07, 10:18 AM
#1
Super Moderator
Thread Starter
Japanese court rules Toyota employee died from too much work ...
Friday, November 30, 2007
Wife to get compensation for Toyota worker's death from overwork
Chisaki Watanabe / Associated Press
TOKYO -- A court in central Japan ordered the government today to pay compensation to a woman who argued that her husband died from overwork at Toyota Motor Corp., Japan's largest automaker, officials said.
Hiroko Uchino filed the suit after a local Labor Ministry office rejected applications for worker's compensation benefits she filed after the death of her husband, Kenichi, said Hiroko Tamaki, a lawyer for the plaintiff.
The Labor Ministry office said the case did not qualify as death from overwork, according to the lawyer.
In today's ruling, the Nagoya District Court ordered the government to reverse the local office's decision and pay compensation, court official Chie Hara said. Hara refused to give other details.
Death from overwork, known as "karoshi" in Japanese, has steadily increased since the government first recognized it in 1987.
The government acknowledged 147 cases of death from overwork from 303 applications in the year ending in March 2007, according to ministry figures.
As a middle manager in charge of quality control at a Toyota factory in Toyota City, Kenichi Uchino had been putting in long hours before he collapsed at work and died in February 2002 at age 30, the lawyer said.
He had worked more than 80 hours of overtime per month for at least six months before his death, and in the month before his death put in 114 hours of overtime, the lawyer said.
Toyota, which was not involved in the suit, said the company was not in a position to comment.
Wife to get compensation for Toyota worker's death from overwork
Chisaki Watanabe / Associated Press
TOKYO -- A court in central Japan ordered the government today to pay compensation to a woman who argued that her husband died from overwork at Toyota Motor Corp., Japan's largest automaker, officials said.
Hiroko Uchino filed the suit after a local Labor Ministry office rejected applications for worker's compensation benefits she filed after the death of her husband, Kenichi, said Hiroko Tamaki, a lawyer for the plaintiff.
The Labor Ministry office said the case did not qualify as death from overwork, according to the lawyer.
In today's ruling, the Nagoya District Court ordered the government to reverse the local office's decision and pay compensation, court official Chie Hara said. Hara refused to give other details.
Death from overwork, known as "karoshi" in Japanese, has steadily increased since the government first recognized it in 1987.
The government acknowledged 147 cases of death from overwork from 303 applications in the year ending in March 2007, according to ministry figures.
As a middle manager in charge of quality control at a Toyota factory in Toyota City, Kenichi Uchino had been putting in long hours before he collapsed at work and died in February 2002 at age 30, the lawyer said.
He had worked more than 80 hours of overtime per month for at least six months before his death, and in the month before his death put in 114 hours of overtime, the lawyer said.
Toyota, which was not involved in the suit, said the company was not in a position to comment.
11-30-07, 10:54 AM
#3
Lexus Champion
Isn't Overtime the decision chose by the employee to work longer than the company expect him to work? Thus isn't it his own fault for working too much?
But if he's doing something he likes, it might be worth it to him to work that hard...
But if he's doing something he likes, it might be worth it to him to work that hard...
11-30-07, 02:57 PM
#5
Lexus Fanatic
Well, maybe some clues are begining to show up here. This young man was a quality-control manager. He died in 2002. Many of us have commented on the slow demise in the quality of Toyota products in the last several years....most noticeable in the new Camry and Tundra. Perhaps it was determined, at the company, that much of the high quality of former Toyota products was simply due to overstressed employees doing more than their share. This man's death had to have been noticed at the time......after all, he was a middle manager......and maybe the slow demise in Toyota quality since then is due to the company cutting back on working hours and the amount of time spent on quality control...........besides the obvious cheapening of some of the parts used in assembly.
The government acknowledges 147 cases of death from overwork as of 2007, but does not, at least in the article, mention any more at Toyota.
But it is hard to determine if the problems at Toyota TODAY (not in 2002 when this man died) are due to too much employee work or too little. The company has expanded enormously since 2002, and has undoubtedly hired a lot of new people as well. Like I said, we may have some clues here, but they by no means certain.
The government acknowledges 147 cases of death from overwork as of 2007, but does not, at least in the article, mention any more at Toyota.
But it is hard to determine if the problems at Toyota TODAY (not in 2002 when this man died) are due to too much employee work or too little. The company has expanded enormously since 2002, and has undoubtedly hired a lot of new people as well. Like I said, we may have some clues here, but they by no means certain.
Last edited by mmarshall; 11-30-07 at 03:04 PM.
11-30-07, 04:33 PM
#6
It is pretty much mandatory that you do do overtime. I worked in one of Japan's biggest company (worlds biggest for that matter but anyways) they will make you work like none other and it is an unspoken rule that you cannot even claim overtime when you're young. I was fresh out of undergrad, NONE of the other newbies even attempted to claim overtime...I talked to the HR and they're response was "you'll get looked down upon your bosses". A lot of my friends' that still work in a japanese company work from like 8-past midnight Monday through Saturday and Sunday in some cases; and that's not even a busy season or anything. And we all know the Japanese companies pay NOTHING compared to the western world
. I dunno how they do it. Even though I got the "respect" from my family that I work for a nice company, I just could not do it. I don't know how my father does; and I really really respect him for that.
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11-30-07, 07:47 PM
#8
Lexus Test Driver
I'm embarrassed to admit that there have been months I have not even worked 114 hours... not even to speak of overtime of 114 hours.
Forced overtime for wage workers is becoming fairly common in the US though, especially in management jobs.
Forced overtime for wage workers is becoming fairly common in the US though, especially in management jobs.
11-30-07, 07:53 PM
#9
Lexus Fanatic
Though there may be some exceptions, American managers generally don't get overtime.........they are not unionized and usually get a straight yearly salary, no matter how many hours they work.
11-30-07, 07:56 PM
#10
Lexus Test Driver
Yeah, if they're salaried of course they're out of luck (I live in Vegas after all, where even entry-level hospitality managers are salaried), but there is definitely management that is wage based (pretty common in retail, for one, and many companies in low-end food service).
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