Labor offices tighten inspections on unpaid overtime work

Unpaid overtime work, prevailing in major corporations in Japan, has been checked one after another.

Urged by the workers, their families, and Japanese Communist Party Dietmembers, Labor Standards Offices are intensifying checks on unpaid overtime at Hitachi Co., Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Toshiba, Toyota, and other major corporations and banks, and have instructed them to correct their illegal labor practices.

In some cases, surprise inspections were made at head offices, research facilities, and factories, such as at Itami Plant of Mitsubishi Electric Corp. in Hyogo Prefecture.

JCP Dietmembers took up this problem 87 times in Diet sessions since 1997, which led the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry to issue last April an instruction toward eliminating unpaid overtime work.

JCP Chair Shii Kazuo in an intensive questioning session in the Diet on February 7 urged Prime Minister Koizumi Jun'ichiro to enact a law compelling corporations to take steps to root out unpaid overtime work and to allow workers to use paid holidays, to which Koizumi answered that steps should be taken. (end)