Office Tomisaka - HR Consultant Tokyo JAPAN

The revised Child-rearing and Nursing Care Leave Law obliges firms to allow employees with children under 3 to make use of the system like shorter working hours. Working fewer hours helps employees who want to continue their careers, but have children or care-giving obligations.

Here's excerpts from Rules for Childcare Care Leave

Article 15 (Work for Shortened Hours for Childcare)

1.An employee, who is taking care of his/her child aged less than three years, may assume that the normal working hours set forth in the Office Regulations shall be six hours from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. (with the rest time of 60 minutes from Noon to 1:00 p.m.). (In addition, a female employee, who is taking care of her child aged less than one year, may request the Company separately to grant the childcare time twice a day for 30 minutes each.)

2.Notwithstanding the provision of the preceding paragraph, the Company may refuse the application for work for shortened hours for childcare from any employee coming under any of the following subparagraphs:

The foreign trainee and technical internship program was established to help workers from developing nations learn on-the-job skills at Japanese companies and other workplaces. The stated goal is to provide participants with three years of vocational experience before they return to their home countries. 

Last week, the labor standards inspection office in Ibaraki Prefecture recognized that the June 2008 death of a 31-year-old Chinese man in Japan on that program was due to karoshi, or death from overwork. 

This case exposed the deceitful nature of a system promoted as making "international contributions." 

The trainee in question arrived in Japan in December 2005, and had been employed at a metal processing company in Ibaraki. In the three months prior to his death, he logged between 93 and 109 hours of overtime each month, the office reported. His death is viewed as the tip of the iceberg. There are some 200,000 Chinese and other foreign trainees and interns in Japan. According to the Japan International Training Cooperation Organization, which helps to transfer Japanese skills to developing countries through the training program, 35 guest workers on the program died during fiscal 2008. Of that number, 16 are believed to have succumbed to cerebral and coronary ailments caused by working long hours. In fiscal 2009, there were 27 deaths. 

For details, please visit the following website:

http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201007140414.html

(The Asahi Shimbun, July 14, 2010)

"I'm going to be the first in our company to take child-care leave." "I'm going to fully enjoy my six months in child care." "I'm going to take a bath with my baby boy three or more days a week." 

These quotes are from the Ikumen Project website opened in June by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare. Ikumen is a coined word that is a combination of ikuji (child-rearing) and men, referring to fathers who actively take part in raising children. Such men are increasing--a trend that is good for children, families and society as a whole. 

The revised Child-care and Family-care Leave Law took effect June 30 to support the spread of men's participation in child care. 

The revised law has a new rule called a "dad and mom child-care leave plus system."

For details, please visit the following website:

http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201007040253.html

(The Asahi Shimbun, July 3, 2010) 

Employer should introduce one of the following measures to secure stable employment for older workers until the age of 65.

(Measures for securing employment for older persons)

Article 9. In cases where the employer fixes the retirement age (limited to under 65 years old; hereinafter the same shall apply), he or she shall conduct any one of the measures listed in the items below in order to secure stable employment for older workers until the age of 65 (hereinafter referred to as “measures for securing employment for older persons”):

(1) Raising the retirement age;

(2) Introduction of a continuous employment system (refers to the system of continuing to employ an older person wishing to be employed following said employee’s retirement; hereinafter the same shall apply);

(3) Abolition of the retirement age.

2. Employers shall be regarded as having implemented the measures listed in item 2 of the preceding paragraph when it has designated the standards concerning older persons who are subject to the continuous employment system and introduced said system based on said standards, by a contract concluded with a labor union in case it is organized by a majority of workers in the establishment concerned, or by a written agreement concluded with the person representing a majority of the workers in case a labor union organized by a majority of the workers does not exist.

Supplementary Provisions

(Special provisions concerning measures for securing employment for older persons, etc.)

Article 4. Concerning the application of the provisions of paragraph 1 of Article 9 during a period set forth in the top column of the following table, in accordance with the criteria presented in the top column of the same table, “65 years old” in the same paragraph shall be read as terms presented in the bottom column of the same table respectively.

From April 1, 2006 to March 31, 2007 62 years old

From April 1, 2007 to March 31, 2010 63 years old

From April 1, 2010 to March 31, 2013 64 years old

( Mar 22, 2006 )

Insurance payment on work-related disasters to proprietors with fewer than five employees by health insurance

Work-related disasters are not applicable to health insurance since Health Insurance Law does not permit insurance payment for injuries or diseases due to work-related disasters.

On the other hands, representatives or managers of small corporations are not entitled to receive insurance payment based on Worker's Accident Compensation Insurance Law because they are not construed as employees according to Labor Standard Law.

But representatives who are representatives of corporation called "extremely small business" is now allowed to receive health insurance payment for work-related injuries from July 1st, 2003 as a temporary measure with the condition that they are involved in similar job to their employees after it was found that there was no difference in working condition between them and individual business.

(Jul 1, 2004)