17.10.16 News Zero Ichimen - House of Representatives Election Pledge Comparison ② “Way of Work”

[arashitranslation]

2017 House of Representatives Election - Comparison of Pledges ② “Way of Work”

In the House of Representatives Election this time,
Our “way of work” is also
one big point of dispute.

This is an article on British newspaper “The Guardian” dated 6 October.
On this day, while the photo of Kazuo Ishiguro-san, awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, was on the top of the page,
on the same day Japan’s issue of death from overwork was also largely reported.

The heading of the article was
“Journalist died after doing 159 hours of overtime in a month“.
Part of the main text wrote,
“A labour standards office in Tokyo later attributed her death to karoshi”.
Here the alphabet “KAROSHI”, “death from overwork” are written.
In 2013, NHK reporter Sado Miwa-san died from overwork because of long hours of working,
the article reported this issue.

On the same 6 October,
The US newspaper The New York Times also reported it as
“the case, the latest high-profile example of karoshi, or ‘death from overwork’”.

The US newspaper also
uses the word “KAROSHI”,
in fact the word “KAROSHI” which is born in Japan, in 2002,
was registered on Oxford English Dictionary,
one of the most authoritative dictionaries.
In this manner, in English-speaking media,
it is practically used.

There is reason of the world being highly concerned about the karoshi problem of Japan.

This is a survey comparing long-hour work,
the percentage of workers with over 49 hours of weekly working hours,
for Sweden it is 7.3%, Germany 9.6%,
UK 12.3%, US 16.4%, while
the percentage for Japan reaches up to 20.8%.
Besides, the percentage higher than Japan is
Hong Kong 30.1%, Korea 32% etc.,
from the perspective of the West,
Asia stands out in its long-hour work.

Then, as for Japanese’s “way of work” which is regarded as a problem for many years
in the general election this time, how are various parties going to change it?

This time, many political parties
“corrective or regulatory measures on long-hour work”
such wordings are specified in their pledges and policies.

Looking into details
The Liberal Democratic Party of Japan proposes
“By progressing reform of way of work, to correct the long-hour work”
Komeito proposes
“In order to correct long-hour work,
to introduce regulation of ceiling working hours with penalties for overtime work”

Kibo no To proposes
“Regulate long-hour work, support corporates which increases regular employees”
The Japanese Communist Party proposes
“To eliminate long-hour work
If illegal “service overtime” is discovered, the payment for overtime would be doubled”

The Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan proposes
“Regulation of long-hour work, increase of minimum salary”
The Social Democratic Party proposes
“to promote human and dignified way of work,
long-hour work will be regulated”

Besides, while Nippon Ishin no Kai
does not specify regulations for long-hour work,
“Evaluate work by work result rather than working hours
from “hour salary” to “achievement salary” it proposes such policy.
The Party for Japanese Kokoro
is setting out new policy “shorten working hours”.

Various parties have tendency of writing pledges
in the direction of reviewing long-hour work,
while how to realise them is to be questioned.

Source: News Zeroイチメン (http://www.ntv.co.jp/zero/ichimen/2017/10/2017-2.html)

Comments

[roo_kie]

It's really sad ne~
I don't understand much of it though, why they choose to suicide?
But I think everyone must aware about it. not everyone is strong!

[arashitranslation]

I think because of various reasons... indeed there should be measures to help those in need.