At first I thought this was the case from last year but evidently not. Way to go Toyota.

Top Toyota engineer died of overwork at 45, Japan rules
By Jay Alabaster, Associated Press Writer

TOKYO — A Japanese labor bureau has ruled that one of Toyota Motor's top car engineers died from working too many hours, the latest decision against overwork in Japan, where stoic acceptance of extended overtime has long been the norm.

The man who died was 45 and had been under severe pressure as the lead engineer in developing a hybrid version of Toyota's blockbuster Camry line, said Mikio Mizuno, the lawyer representing his wife. His identity is being withheld at the request of his family, who continue to live in Toyota City where the company is based.

In the two months leading up to his death, he averaged more than 80 hours of overtime per month, the criteria for overwork, according to Mizuno.

He regularly worked nights and weekends, was frequently sent abroad. He was grappling with shipping a model for the influential North American International Auto Show in Detroit when he died of ischemic heart disease in January 2006. His daughter found his body at their home the day before he was to leave for the United States.

The ruling was handed down June 30 and will allow his family to collect benefits from his work insurance, Mizuno said.

An officer at the Aichi Labor Bureau on Wednesday confirmed the ruling, but declined to comment on the record.

In a statement, Toyota offered its condolences and said it would work to improve monitoring of the health of its workers.

The ruling is the most recent in a string of decisions against long working hours in Japan, which is struggling to cut down on deaths from overworking, known as "karoshi." Such deaths have steadily increased since the Health Ministry first recognized the phenomenon in 1987.

Last year, a court in central Japan ordered the government to pay compensation to Hiroko Uchino, the wife of a Toyota employee who collapsed at work and died at age 30 in 2002. She took the case to court after her application to the local labor bureau for compensation was rejected.

 

Ron
Exactly how many hours per week have you been putting into work lately?

 

I do research for the military, don't ask, don't tell.

 

This is a repost.

I remember this being discussed, and although this is such an unfortunate incident, I hope that all parties have resolved this issue to prevent it from happening again...

 

If a normal work week is 40 hours annd he worked 80 in over time that come out to 120, that only give him 48 hours sleep a week, 6.86 hours sleep a day, assuming he eats while he works

 

It still rattles me when I hear of someone with talent and promise cut short his own life by working so hard. A good friend and coworker worked himself to death only 18 months ago. Jason was billing over 500 hours a month for a number of his clients when he simply died of a stroke at the age of 34. We had been after him for months to slow down and take a vacation, but he was a driven individual who loved his work.

We would occasionally drag him and a few other friends of our unofficial "brain trust" out to a neighborhood cantina for an evening of music, fajitas, and Margaritas to break up the week. He genuinely enjoyed himself and after his youth group leadership at his church, I think that was his favorite way to relax. It's sad to see someone literally work himself to death - and there is a great lesson there for all of us. Take some time to stop measuring the roses and smell them occasionally. Wealth and success is wonderful - but you want to be around to enjoy them.

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080709/...overwork_death



Whoa.... He was only 45. The Japanese really need to address this known issue:

 

wow...so this is how we get ultra reliable cars.............kinda sad.....but....gotta give those japanese some credit for working their lives on our cars...

 

I liked the story too which was why I started the "Camry Hybrid kills someone before even being introduced" thread.

 

If you're talking about the other Toyota employee who's widow sued after claiming he worked himself to death, which I remember and is pointed out in this article, this is a different story. I don't believe it is a repost at all. And this time, they won't give the guy's name out other than to say he was the lead engineer on the Camry Hybrid.

 

?? yeah, we americans cant make a car... your point?

(actually, american cars have recently been increasing in reliability.. i think.. but that reputation has sort of soiled them, i think Ford's stock value is what it was back in like 1950 at the moment)

 

Does anyone remember when George Bush Sr. had travelled to Japan in the many moons ago to see why the Japanese had such reliable cars and the US was far behind? He realized that the assembly process of building a car from the ground up placed less margin of error in the process instead of building a door here, hood there etc. He also vomited at the main dinner while in Japan.

 

The article says 80 hours of overtime.. what's 'standard time'? If it's 40 hours then he was only working around 58-60 hours a week which isn't really that bad... my wife does 60-65 hours a week for 3 months during tax season (she's an auditor) and 50-55 hours the rest of the year. I haven't ever thought she was going to die from working.

Beside that I think working might have caused stress which might have accelerated his death but that's indirect.... that'd be like suing your employer for you getting skin cancer because you work outdoors.

 

That was 80 hours of overtime in a month, not a week. Still, if he worked 7 days a week, that's only 2.6 hours of overtime a day, and he died from that? Give me a break! It was a foolish ruling if you ask me. He had other complications.

 

I was going to post the same thing - 80 hours a month overtime is not that unusual for salaried employees, that said, we don't know the extent of the pressure he was under.

Re: you last comment; if an employer has workers that regularly work outside in direct sunlight and does nothing to evaluate and mitigate the risk i.e offer of protective clothing/sunscreen, they could well be leaving themselves open to being sued if skin cancers appear.