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Japan - Compensation & Benefit Legislation

CAPITAL

Tokyo

 

CLIMATE

Varies from tropical in south to cool temperate in north.

 

LANGUAGES

Japanese

 

LEGAL SYSTEM

Modeled after European civil law system with English-American influence. Judicial review of legislative acts in the Supreme Court; accepts compulsory ICJ jurisdiction, with reservations.

 

CURRENCY

Japanese Yen (1 USD = 133.650 JPY as of March 1, 2002)

 

JAPAN - COST-OF-LIVING

ERI's Relocation Assessor is a recommended source for cost-of-living data.

 

JAPAN - EMBASSY/CONSULATES

U. S. Embassy at Tokyo

1-10-5 Akasaka

Miato-ku

Tokyo, Japan 107-8420

Telephone: [81] (03) 3224-5000

Fax: [81] (03) 3505-1862

http://usembassy.state.gov/tokyo/

 

U.S. Consulate General

Osaka

11-5 Nishitenma, 2-chome

Kita-ku

Osaka, Japan 530-8543

Telephone: [81] (06) 6315-5900

Fax: [81] (06) 6315-5914

 

U.S. Consulate General

Naha

2564 Nishihara

Urasoe-shi

Okinawa, Japan 901-2101

Telephone: [81] (098) 876-4211

Fax: [81] (098) 876-4243

 

U.S. Consulate General

Sapporo

Kita 1-jo, Nishi 28-chome

Chuo-ku

Sapporo, Japan 064-0821

Telephone: [81] (011) 641-1115

Fax: [81] (011) 643-1283

 

U.S. Consulate General

Fukuoka

5-26 Ohori 2-chome

Chuo-ku

Fukuoka, Japan 810-0052

Telephone: [81] (092) 751-9331

Fax: [81] (092) 713-0922

 

U.S. Consulate General

Nagoya

Nishiki SIS Building 6F, 10-33, Nishiki 3-chome

Naka-ku

Nagoya, Japan 460-0003

Telephone: [81] (052) 203-4011

Fax: [81] (052) 201-4612

 

Embassy of Japan at Washington D.C.

2520 Massachusetts Avenue N.W.

Washington D.C. 20008

Telephone: (202) 238-6700

Fax: (202) 328-2187

http://www.embjapan.org/

 

JAPAN - HOLIDAYS

 

JAPAN - LEAVE

Annual Leave: 5 weeks (minimum) paid vacation each year.

 

Maternity Leave: 14 weeks – 60% of pay (paid by social security).

 

JAPAN - MINIMUM AGE

Children under the age of 15 may not be employed, and those under age 18 may not be employed in dangerous or harmful jobs.

 

(Section 6.d. Acceptable Conditions of Work, Japan – Report of Human Rights Practices, 2001, U.S. Department of State.)

 

JAPAN - MINIMUM REMUNERATION

Minimum wages are set on a regional (prefectural) and industry basis, with the input of tripartite (workers, employers, public interest) advisory councils. Employers covered by a minimum wage must post the concerned minimum wages, and compliance with minimum wages is considered widespread.

 

Minimum wage rates, effective during 2001, ranged from 2,231 yen per hour in Tokyo to 1,358 yen in Aomori prefecture and are considered sufficient to provide a worker and family with a decent standard of living.

 

(Section 6.e. Acceptable Conditions of Work, Japan – Report of Human Rights Practices, 2001, U.S. Department of State.)

 

JAPAN - REMUNERATION

ERI's Geographic and Salary Assessors are recommended sources for international remuneration covering 189 countries.

 

JAPAN - REPORT OF HUMAN RIGHTS PRACTICES (2001, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE)

Section 6 Worker Rights

 

a. The Right of Association

 

The Constitution provides for the right of workers to associate freely in unions. Approximately 11.5 million workers, 21.5 percent of all employees, belong to labor unions. Unions are free of government control and influence. Although most unions are involved in political activity as well as labor relations, they are not controlled by political parties. There are no restrictions requiring a single trade union structure, nor are there restrictions on who may be a union official. The Japanese Trade Union Confederation, which represents 7.2 million workers and was formed in 1989 through the merger of several confederations, is the largest labor organization. The right to strike, implicit in the Constitution, is exercised. During 1999 87,000 workdays involving 26,000 employees were lost to strikes. The law prohibits retribution against strikers and is enforced effectively.

 

However, some public employees, including members of the armed forces, police, and firefighters are not permitted to form unions or to strike. These restrictions have led to a long-running dispute with the International Labor Organization's (ILO) Committee on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations over the observance of ILO Convention 98 concerning the right to organize and bargain collectively. The Committee has observed that these public employees have a limited capacity to participate in the process of determining their wages and has asked the Government to consider measures it could take to encourage negotiations with public employees.

 

Unions are free also to affiliate internationally and are active in international bodies, most notably the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions.

 

b. The Right to Organize and Bargain Collectively

 

The Constitution provides unions with the right to organize, bargain, and act collectively. These rights are exercised freely, and collective bargaining is practiced widely. The annual "Spring Wage Offensive," in which individual unions in each industry conduct negotiations simultaneously with their firms, involves nationwide participation. Management usually consults closely with its enterprise union. However, trade unions are independent of management and aggressively pursue the interests of their workers. The law prohibits antiunion discrimination, and adequate mechanisms exist for resolving cases that occur, including the reinstatement with back wages of any workers fired for union activities. However, the collective bargaining rights of public employees were limited. The Government determines the pay of government employees based on a recommendation by the independent National Personnel Authority.

 

There are no export processing zones.

 

c. Prohibition of Forced or Compulsory Labor

 

The Constitution provides that no person shall be held in bondage of any kind. Involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime, is prohibited. Although children were not specified in the provision, this legal prohibition against forced or compulsory labor applies equally to adults and to children. Although in general forced or bonded labor does not occur, women were trafficked to the country for the purpose of prostitution (see Section 6.f.).

 

Former Allied prisoners of war and Chinese and Korean workers continued to press claims for damages and compensation for forced labor during World War II in Japanese civil courts, U.S. courts, and in complaints to the ILO. In July and August, the Tokyo and Kyoto District Courts ordered the Government to pay damages in two separate cases. In the first, compensation was ordered to be paid to the family of a Chinese man who died in hiding after escaping from a coal mine where he had been forced to work during World War II. In the second case, compensation was ordered to be paid to 15 survivors of a 1945 explosion that had killed 524 Koreans brought to the country as forced laborers. Both lower courts ruled that the Government had failed to ensure a safe return home for the laborers but rejected further compensation for their forced labor. The Government was appealing both rulings at year's end. In April the Supreme Court rejected two separate lawsuits filed by individuals seeking disability pensions for injuries sustained while forced to serve with the Imperial army. In 2000 the Diet passed a law offering "condolence money" for foreign nationals killed or injured while serving with the Imperial army in response to a 1998 Tokyo High Court recommendation. The Public Management Ministry began accepting applications for condolence money in April; the legislation provides for payments of $33,333 (4 million yen) to seriously injured foreign national soldiers and $21,667 (2.6 million yen) to the survivors of those foreign nationals killed in service. However, seriously injured Japanese veterans are eligible for $632,761 (80 million yen) and a lifetime pension. An ILO committee has called on the Government to take additional measures to satisfy individual Chinese and Korean victims of forced labor during the war.

 

The Asian Women's Fund continued to support former comfort women, who were forced to provide sexual services to Japanese troops during World War II.

 

d. Status of Child Labor Practices and Minimum Age for Employment

 

The Constitution bans the exploitation of children. Both societal values and the rigorous enforcement of the Labor Standards Law protect children from exploitation in the workplace. By law children under the age of 15 may not be employed, and those under age 18 may not be employed in dangerous or harmful jobs. The Labor Inspection Division of the Ministry of Labor, which vigorously enforces the Labor Standards Law, reported 16 violations in 2000.

 

The Government prohibited forced or bonded labor, including that performed by children, and enforced this prohibition effectively (see Section 6.c.).

 

e. Acceptable Conditions of Work

 

Minimum wages are set on a regional (prefectural) and industry basis, with the input of tripartite (workers, employers, public interest) advisory councils. Employers covered by a minimum wage must post the concerned minimum wages, and compliance with minimum wages is considered widespread. Minimum wage rates, effective during the year, ranged from 2,231 yen per hour in Tokyo to 1,358 yen in Aomori prefecture and are considered sufficient to provide a worker and family with a decent standard of living. The Labor Standards Law provides for a 40-hour workweek for most industries and mandates premium pay for hours worked over 40 in a week, or 8 in a day. However, labor unions frequently criticized the Government for failing to enforce maximum working hour regulations in smaller firms.

 

The Ministry of Labor effectively administered various laws and regulations governing occupational health and safety, principal among which is the Industrial Safety and Health Law. Standards were set by the Ministry of Labor and issued after consultation with the Standing Committee on Safety and Health of the Central Labor Standards Council. Labor inspectors have the authority to suspend unsafe operations immediately, and the law provides that workers may voice concerns over occupational safety and remove themselves from unsafe working conditions without jeopardizing their continued employment.

 

The Immigration Bureau of the Justice Ministry estimated that, as of January 1, there were 252,000 foreign nationals residing illegally in the country. Illegal immigrants come primarily from South Korea, the Philippines, China, Thailand, and Malaysia. In February the Justice Ministry announced plans to construct a new immigration detention facility in Tokyo and to increase legal immigration numbers by 1,100 over a 5-year period as part of an effort to decrease the numbers of illegal foreign residents.

 

While many foreign illegal residents entered the country in search of better paying manufacturing and construction jobs, these opportunities decreased during the economic slowdown. Thus more foreign workers were unemployed or marginally employed. Activist groups claim that employers exploited or discriminated against foreign workers, who often have little or no knowledge of the Japanese language or their legal rights. In August nongovernmental organizations held a forum on migrant labor that was attended by 1,000 activists. The forum was held to draw attention to exploitative practices, including unsafe working conditions and unpaid overtime, that foreign workers are exposed to while working on "trainee" visas under the Foreign Technical Trainee and Technical Internship Programs. The Government has tried to reduce the inflow of illegal foreign workers by prosecuting employers. Revisions of the Immigration Law provide for penalties against employers of undocumented foreign workers. Suspected foreign workers also may be denied entry for passport, visa, and entry application irregularities. In addition the 1999 revision to the immigration law established penalties for illegal stays separate from existing injunctions against illegal entry. The Government continued to study the foreign worker issue, and several citizens' groups were working with illegal foreign workers to improve their access to information on worker rights.

 

f. Trafficking in Persons

 

The Constitution prohibits holding persons in bondage, and the Penal Code contains several provisions that could be used to combat trafficking of persons; however, there are no specific laws that prohibit trafficking in persons, and trafficking of women and girls into the country was a problem. Women and girls, primarily from Thailand, the Philippines, and the former Soviet Union, were trafficked into the country for sexual exploitation and forced labor. Women and girls from Colombia, Brazil, Mexico, South Korea, Malaysia, Burma, and Indonesia also were trafficked into the country in smaller numbers. Japan also was a destination for illegal immigrants from China who were trafficked by organized crime groups who often hold such persons in debt bondage for sexual exploitation and indentured servitude in sweatshops and restaurants. In recent years, the Government has reported that some smugglers use killings and abduction to ensure payment.

 

In 1999 the Diet amended the Law on Control and Improvement of Amusement Businesses in order to supplement the Prostitution Prevention Act as an instrument against trafficking. The amended law sanctions employers rather than just sanctioning victims and requires the Government to refuse to grant or to revoke the business license of anyone convicted of the "crime of encouragement" to engage in prostitution. In 1999 the Diet also enacted a law intended to prevent all forms of sexual exploitation of children, whether trafficked or not, which imposes a 1- to 3-year sentence on anyone convicted of trading in children for the purpose of child prostitution or child pornography. Traffickers can also be prosecuted for violations of employment, immigration, or labor laws, and for Penal Code offenses such as abduction and Kidnaping. However, relatively few persons ever are prosecuted in connection with trafficking and forced sexual servitude; those who were prosecuted generally are prosecuted in connection with violations of immigration law. There were allegations that some law enforcement units have been reluctant to investigate reports of trafficking and that the Government has not been aggressive in arresting and prosecuting suspected traffickers.

 

JAPAN - STANDARD WORKWEEK

The Labor Standards Law provides for a 40-hour workweek for most industries and mandates premium pay for hours worked over 40 in a week, or 8 in a day.

 

(Section 6.e. Acceptable Conditions of Work, Japan – Report of Human Rights Practices, 2001, U.S. Department of State.)