Panel OKs outline of work style reform legislation

September 18, 2017

TOKYO- A Japanese government panel on Friday approved an outline of a package of bills for work style reforms, including the introduction of overtime caps and measures to promote equal pay for equal work.

The legislation is "generally reasonable," the Labor Policy Council said in a report to Health, Labor and Welfare Minister Katsunobu Kato.

The government plans to submit the set of bills to revise eight related laws, including the labor standards law and the part-time employment law, to an extraordinary parliamentary session seen starting later this month, after gaining approval from the Liberal Democratic Party-led ruling coalition.

The package includes a bill to introduce a system to exclude highly skilled and paid professionals from work hour regulations, a step criticized as a "zero overtime pay" system by opposition parties and the Japanese Trade Union Confederation, or Rengo.

Rengo has rejected the so-called white-collar exemption system although the government has agreed to accept all Rengo-requested revisions to the bill, including one to oblige employers to secure 104 or more holidays a year for workers covered by the system.

A bill to amend the labor standards law, featuring the introduction of a similar system, was submitted in 2015. But the Diet, Japan's parliament, was unable to start deliberations on it, due to resistance from the opposition camp.

The legislation package, meanwhile, calls for setting an annual overtime ceiling of 720 hours with a monthly limit of below 100 hours. Offending companies will be penalized.

The package also includes a ban on "unreasonable" pay differences between regular staff and others such as part timers and dispatched workers. Jiji Press