The Labour Lawyers Association of Japan Issues a Statement on the Debate over Revision of the Working Hours Law

In January, a group within the Labor Policy Council of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, which is studying the future system of working hours, published a report on revision of the Law on Working Hours. In line with this, an intensive debate will be held within the division of the council in charge of labor conditions.

Following release of the report, the Labour Lawyers Association of Japan, which has expressed its opinions from time to time on matters related to working hours, disapproved of the report's proposal to adopt a new, self-regulated working hours system and pointed out its many defects, adding that the system would be able to achieve only a small part of its objectives. On that basis, the Association sent a written statement to the Council in which it made a strong request that the problems related to working hours in Japan should be remedied via extensive and intensive discussion by the Council, without being bound by the report.

The report proposes, as a step to attain a "work-and-private-life balance", encouraging employers to make it easier for general workers to take annual paid holidays, and lifting restrictions on working hours for workers who are just about to be promoted to managerial or supervisory posts and those who engage in back-up work (referred to as semi-managers and semi-supervisors).

At the same time, the labour lawyers in their statement provided an analysis of the problems regarding working hours, highlighting the fact that in terms of working hours a polarization of workers in Japan has been in progress. Those who are forced to work long hours are currently not only unable to secure time to spend with their families, local communities and themselves, but also in situations jeopardizing their mental and physical health. The statement also urges efforts to overcome the problems of people working long hours, asserting that they contribute to the declining birthrate and hinder the realization of gender equality in society.

The statement also stresses the importance of stipulating regulations on daily working hours: the fundamental problem, it explains, lies in the fact that there is too much work; therefore, if the scope of deregulation of working hours is expanded to workers in semi-managerial and semi-supervisory posts without addressing the fundamental problem, that will neither lead to a situation where working hours are autonomously determined, nor serve as an effective method for shortening working hours. At the same time, regarding the measure suggested by the report to make it easier for general workers to take annual paid holidays, the statement attributes the difficulty of workers taking consecutive holidays not to the Labor Standards Law, but to the basic stance of employers who fail to launch and put into effect schemes which actually enable workers to take such holidays; neither "work-and-private-life balance" nor shorter working hours will be attained, it concludes, without drastic reform of the workplace practices of Japanese employers.

Although in its statement the Labour Lawyers Association of Japan approves of some of the proposals made in the Council report, it points out, quite specifically and strongly, matters other than those mentioned above, and recommends that the EU Working Time Directive should be referred to in order to tighten up the legal situation of working hours in Japan. As such, it will loom large in future debate among the parties concerned.