Lessons F ROM ABROAD
SaraTatelman
By

Japan’s uniquedeath benefit
Country provides compensation to thefamilies of those who die from overwork

Some Japanese employees are literally
working themselves to death. With hundreds of people succumbing to punishingovertime hours each year, the deaths
are common enough to have their own terminology.
Karoshi refers to fatal strokes, heart attacks or cerebral
hemorrhage, while karojisatsu relates to suicide. And
if their families can link the deaths to brutal work
schedules, they may receive workers’ compensation.
Labour boards may recognize a death as karoshi
or karojisatsu if the victim worked an average of 80
hours of overtime in each of the six months before
death or 100 hours in the month before dying, says
Rika Morioka, a medical sociologist in Myanmar
who has studied karoshi. Government agencies
estimate the number of claims related to karoshi inrecent years at about 300 annually.
It’s hard to determine how many hours anemployee works, since many white-collar workers
don’t punch in and out, she says. As a result, families
will submit computer logs, voice-mail messages
and even convenience store receipts from late-night
commutes home as evidence.

ISTOCK PHOTO

An employer’s defence
Workers’ compensation bureaus accept just under halfof karoshi and karojisatsu claims, says Masako Banno,a corporate lawyer who primarily represents employers
at Okuno & Partners in Tokyo. The process can takeup to five years and, once a claim is successful, thefamily will receive a one-time bereavement paymentof roughly three million yen (about $36,000), a burial
payment of 315,000 yen (about $3,800) and a monthly
pension based on the victim’s salary and the number
dependants, according to Scott North, a sociology
professor at Osaka University.
Survivors who remain unsatisfied can file alawsuit against employers, according to Banno. The
cases can be hard to defend because a labour board
would have already ruled excessive overtime was afactor in the employee’s death.

“Prevention is the best way for employers tomanage the risk. That’s why good employers are trying to reduce overtime work,” says Banno, pointing
to large corporations that require employees to takeat least seven hours off between shifts.
Other companies encourage more reasonable
hours by turning the lights off each evening, but that
doesn’t necessarily help, Morioka notes. If workloads
don’t change, staff may keep working late, huddled
under the lights of emergency exit signs.

The 25-hour workday?
North points out that while companies can’t legallyforce their staff to work overtime, because of enormous power differences between management andlabour, workers’ representatives rarely refuse. And
while the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare
recommends a maximum of 350 hours of overtime
each year, employees can still end up working much
more due to “agreements that far exceed theseguidelines,” says North. “And in some cases, these
agreements are absolutely nonsense, allowing for asmuch as 25 hours of labour a day.”In 2014, the federal government passed a law
aimed at preventing karoshi, but North argues
it’s ineffective since it doesn’t punish misbehaving
employers. “It’s going to be reviewed next year, andthe hope is it’ll have more teeth after the review.”
Banno isn’t optimistic. “The government always
needs to keep the balance between the requests of
the industry or employers and also the labour market
and employees’ side,” she says.
While Japan has a universal health-care system,
Morioka says many employees simply don’t haveenough time to take care of their health. One
victim’s widow, she notes, said her husband tried toschedule surgery during his lunch break because hefelt he couldn’t take a full day off.
Sara Tatelman is an associate editor at
Benefits Canada: sara.tatelman@tc.tc.

BenefitsCanada | January 2017 | 41