Which is a Disease ?
The ILO Report on Japanese Karoshi
The Japanese Company system is often seen as a possible model of a
democratic and participatory workplace. However, the ILO World Labour
Report of 1993 showed us, that Japanese workers suffered from heavy
stress associated with long working hours, and even from Karoshi
(death from overwork). The ILO report concluded that:
"Stress has become one of the most serious health issues of the
twentieth century --- a problem not just for individuals in terms of
physical and mental disability, but for employers and governments who
have started to assess the financial damage."
"Job burnout is frequently associated with people who have become
'workaholics', working up to 80 hours a week. Such long hours can
strain the physical system even though the damage may not be evident
until later. Nor is there any evidence that the working long hours
will produce a corresponding increase in output. Japanese office
workers, for example often stay at their desks to demonstrate loyalty
to the company. As measured by the goods that can be bought for one
hour's labour, productivity is much higher elsewhere --- 46 per cent
higher in France, for example, and 39 per cent in Germany."
"In Japan this issue has been brought to a head recently by claims
related to the karoshi --- death from overwork. The Japanese work
longer hours than most other industrial nations: officially 2,044
hours in 1990 (compared with 1,646 in France, for example). In fact
the working year is generally much longer because of unpaid 'service
overtime'. A survey by Keidanren, a federation of employers'
organiza-tions, indicated that 88 per cent companies rely on such
overtime. Many Japanese bank officials, for example, work 3,000 hours
per year --- the equivalent of 12 hours a day for 250 days. And a
survey by the Institute for Science of Labour indicated that the
number of hours worked at one major insurance firm had risen from
nine hours a day 15 years previously to 11 hours 20 minutes in
1991."
"Such long hours inevitably take their toll. One psychiatrist in 1992
reported, for example, that the number of patients consulting him for
stress problems had quadrupled over the previous ten years. According
to Dr. Tetsunojo Uehata (who coined the word Karoshi), the problems
first emerged at the end of 1970s when Japanese companies cut their
payrolls in response to the oil crisis and increased the load on
employees."
(ILO, World Labour Report 1993, Geneva 1993, p.65,67)
In fact, the actual working hours of manufacturing workers in
Japan, 2,124 hours per year in 1990 according to official statistics,
were approximately 500 hours longer than in France or Germany. This
comparison, however, is based only on official statistics. As the ILO
report suggests, real working conditions in Japan should also reflect
the so-called service overtime work (unpaid overtime work), the
gender and company-size gaps, the team-based competition, the
weakness of trade unions, and company-oriented governmental
regulations.
I would like now to discuss such issues related to the Japanese
workplace and present the idea of ergology, as an alternative to
ergonomics, similar to the alternative concept of ecology over
economics.
Which is a Disease ?
The economic growth of the 20th century has been so tremendous
that while great material productive forces have been created, the
ecological environments of the earth are rapidly being destroyed. The
tempo of Japanese development has, likewise, been exceptional. Many
business managers and politicians abroad admire the achievement of
Japan's successful development, describing it as a miracle, and fear
that this development may bring about the Japanization of their
country.
Certain economists sometimes liken economic growth to a healthy body,
and in adopting this approach diagnose stagnant growth as a disease.
These economists coined the terms, 'British Disease' to describe the
pressure on Britain's economy caused by workers' wage increases,
'Swedish Disease' to describe Sweden's welfare burdens, and recently
'Korean Disease' to describe the decline of diligent work ethics as a
result of the marked increase in middle class workers in Korea. The
term 'Japanese Disease' has now been applied to describe the current
economic situation in Japan following the collapse of the bubble
economy caused by necessary restructuring of Japan's economic system
and adjustment to meet international policies.
However, one of the most important questions we must ask ourselves at
this point is whether this 24 hour working rhythm, diagnosed as
healthy by western practitioners, is not really a disease. Would
oriental or Muslim practitioners make the same diagnosis as their
western counterparts ? Is not the golden age of economic growth which
western medical scientists diagnosed as _h_e_a_l_t_h_y surely a
disease, due to the accumulation of stress at work and symptoms of
arteriosclero-sis that it has thus far produced ?
In drawing our conclusion we should perhaps consider whether a
stressful working life with little free time that may bring great
material gain is more healthy than a simple but stressless life with
a comfortable amount of free time.
This paper will examine these questions by comparing working
conditions in Japan with conditions in other countries, and by an
examination of the standard of economic democratization based on
ecological and human ergological criteria as opposed to industrial
economic or ergonomic criteria.
What is "ergology" ?
The word "ergology" may be new for some present here today.
"Ergology" is derived from the Greek word "ergon", which means work
or labour. The study of ergology originated in Germany, but
development of this field has essentially taken place in Japan. At
the beginning of the 20th century, a famous German biologist, Dr.
Ernst Heinrich Haeckel, named the physiology of nature "ecology", and
the physiology of human beings "ergology".
In Japan, the word "ergology" was introduced by human
anthropolo-gists in the 1950s at the beginning of Japan's so-called
'miracle' period of growth. During the rapid economic growth of the
1960s, Japanese people faced serious environmental pollution and many
indust-rial injuries.
In 1968, Japanese natural scientists, concerned about the trying
working conditions brought about by this rapid industrialization,
formed a small academic society dedicated to the study of Human
Ergology. Thereafter, the society expanded to form a nationwide
research group whose aim was to study ideal working _r_h_y_t_h_ms and
conditions from a humanitarian perspective. The group's work involved
such things as measuring the working tempo and _r_h_y_t_h_m of
factories by employing the circadian _r_h_y_t_h_m theory, and
bringing about an awareness of the vocational diseases brought on by
long working hours and the shift work system.
The association today has approximately 500 members belonging to
various professions, including anthropology, biology, sports science,
medicine and industrial sociology. A quarterly English journal
entitl-ed "Asian Human Ergology" is also published by the association
in Tokyo and is jointly edited with the East Asian Engineering
Associa-tion.
The question I would like to raise at this point is why Japanese
natural scientists have this concern with ergology ? The answer, in
short, is that this interest clearly stems from the great change in
Japan's social environment which occurred during the period of rapid
economic growth. The rapid and unregulated industrialization of the
1950s and '60s brought with it environmental pollution and disease
such as Minamata-disease and Itai-itai-disease, problems conventional
economic theory was not equipped to treat.
Some humane economists adopted the new theory of ecology, search-ing
with natural scientists and medical doctors for solutions to urban
air pollution. Further, a group of lawyers created a new concept in
human rights to defend victims of pollution, the right to
environment.
Moreover, Japanese working people also suffered a high degree of
industrial injury and vocational disease in factories as well as in
offices. Conventional western ergonomics, or human engineering, also
treated the working environment, but it examined only economic
efficiency and productivity.
Ergology was originally a part of ergonomics, but it diverged in
order to analyse elements of industrial labour in terms of the more
essential criteria of physiology and work-science. Ecology examined
environmental problems associated with the production cycles of
_o_r_t_h_o_d_o_x economic theories, air pollution and waste cycles
for example. Ergologists, likewise, sought to apply such theories,
but only in terms of the natural and social limits of human
labour.
Ergologists now concern themselves with a number of topics related to
working conditions in Japan, such as office design, the speed of
factory beltconveyers, the decline of eyesight resulting from
computer usage, and of course the problem of Karoshi, death from
physical and/or mental exhaustion associated with the long hours and
demanding work of Japan's company-centered society.
What is Karoshi ?
Perhaps many of you are familiar with the relatively new Japanese
word, 'Karoshi'. It is now in use not only in Japan, but also in
advanced capitalist countries, just like the words KANBAN, KEIRETSU,
NEMAWASHI and KAIZEN. The word Karoshi has come to symbolize Japan's
workaholick society.
Karoshi is a socio-medical term used particularly in applications for
workers' compensation, especially in cases of cardio-vascular disease
brought on by excessive workloads and occupational stress. Dr.
Tetsunojo Uehata, who coined the word Karoshi, has defined it as "a
permanent disability or death brought on by worsening high blood
pressure or arteriosclerosis resulting in diseases of the blood
vessels in the brain, such as cerebral hemorrhage, subarachnoidal
hemorrhage and cerebral infarction, and acute heart failure and
mycardial infarction induced by conditions such as ischemic heart
disease (IHD)" (T. Uehata, A Medical Study of Karoshi, in, National
Defense Counsel for Victims of Karoshi, KAROSHI, Mado-sha, Tokyo
1990, p.98).
Although there are no official government statistics on Karoshi in
Japan, the word Karoshi has been widely used particularly by lawyers
who have consulted victims through a "Karoshi Hotline Network"
established in 1988. Lawyers on the National Defense Counsel for
Victims of Karoshi estimate that, annually, about 10,000 workers are
victims of Karoshi, a figure similar to the annual number of deaths
due to motor vehicle accidents in Japan.
Data received by the "Karoshi Hotline Network" from June 1988 to June
1993 have been compiled into Table 1. The victims of Karoshi came
from various occupations, were both male and female, as well as
bluecollar and whitecollar workers. The three occupations which
figured highest in the data were drivers, journalists and machinery
workers. However, recently bank officials, school teachers,
construc-tion workers, and foreign migrant workers have begun to
figure more prominently in the data received by the Network.
Directors and managers, including some Presidents of big companies,
also accounted for a number of the cases reported to the Network.
Table 1 Summary of 3,132 Cases reported to the Karoshi Hotline Network from June 1988 to 1993
|
|
1 Contents of Consultation |
Total |
3.132 |
|---|---|---|---|
|
|
Workers' Compensation |
2,265 (72.5 %) |
|
|
|
(Death Cases) |
(1,466)(47.0 %) |
|
|
|
Health Care |
797 (25.6 %) |
|
|
|
Others |
59 ( 1.9 %) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
2 Clients |
Total |
3,062 |
|
|
Workers |
633 (20.7 %) |
|
|
|
Wives |
1,549 (50.6 %) |
|
|
|
Other relatives |
560 (18.3 %) |
|
|
|
Trade Unions |
32 ( 1.0 %) |
|
|
|
Others |
288 ( 9.4 %) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
3 Age |
Total |
3,062 |
|
|
under 30 years old |
197 ( 6.5 %) |
|
|
|
30-39 years |
362 (11.8 %) |
|
|
|
40-49 years |
794 (25.9 %) |
|
|
|
50-59 years |
797 (26.0 %) |
|
|
|
over 60 years old |
174 ( 5.7 %) |
|
|
|
D.K. |
738 (24.1 %) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
4 Sex |
Total |
2,265 |
|
|
Male |
2,136 (94.3 %) |
|
|
|
Female |
102 ( 4.5 %) |
|
|
|
D.K. |
27 ( 1.2 %) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
5 Occupation |
Total |
2,265 |
|
|
Director |
96 ( 4.2 %) |
|
|
|
Manager |
454 (20.0 %) |
|
|
|
Manufacturing Worker |
572 (25.2 %) |
|
|
|
Office Worker |
491 (21.7 %) |
|
|
|
Driver |
220 ( 9.7 %) |
|
|
|
Technical Worker |
179 ( 7.9 %) |
|
|
|
Governmental Employee |
160 ( 7.1 %) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
6 Name of Disease |
Total |
2,265 |
|
|
Cerebral hemorrhage |
363 (16.0 %) |
|
|
|
Subarachnoidal hemorrhage |
372 (16.4 %) |
|
|
|
Cerebral thrombus, infarction |
149 ( 6.6 %) |
|
|
|
Myocardial infarction |
225 ( 9.9 %) |
|
|
|
Heart failure |
393 (17.4 %) |
|
|
|
Others |
763 (33.7 %) |
|
Long working hours
Why is the incidence of Karoshi so high in Japan ? The main reason is clearly related to the disproportionately longer working hours in Japan. According to an official international comparison with other advanced countries conducted by the Ministry of Labor, Japanese working hours per year are about 100-200 hours more than in the US or in Britain, and 400-500 hours more than in Germany, France or North European countries (see Table 2).
Table 2 International Comparison of Actual Working Hours (estimated values for 1990, limited primarily to workers in manufacturing and production industries)
|
COUNTRY |
Hours actually worked 1990 |
1979 |
1970 |
Overtime work1990 |
Days worked 1990 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Japan |
2,124 |
2,159 |
2,269 |
219 |
247 |
|
United States |
1,948 |
1,907 |
1,913 |
192 |
226 |
|
United Kingdom |
1,953 |
1,886 |
1,939 |
187 |
218 |
|
Germany (West) |
1,598 |
1,717 |
1,889 |
99 |
208 |
|
France |
1,683 |
1,712 |
1,872 |
-- |
211 |
|
Iceland |
2,016 |
(no data) |
(no data) |
-- |
|
|
Italy |
1,717 |
1,738 |
1,905 |
-- |
|
|
Norway |
1,650 |
1,572 |
1,794 |
-- |
|
|
Denmark |
1,635 |
1,639 |
1,829 |
-- |
|
|
Finland |
1,608 |
(no data) |
(no data) |
-- |
|
|
Netherlands |
1,584 |
1,669 |
1,893 |
-- |
|
|
Sweden |
1,472 |
1,513 |
1,744 |
-- |
|
These official statistics, however, reflect neither the real
situation nor the feelings of ordinary working people in Japan.
Firstly, these statistics are derived from the average working hours
of firms with over 5 employees. However, thereisa significant gap of
working conditions between big campanies and small ones. In Japan we
have many small companies with under 30 employees. In fact, people
working for small businesses comprise about 60 per cent of the
workforce. Further, these workers often work longer hours and harder
than their big business counterparts, as many small business
companies cannot operate on a regular five day work week. Under the
pressure of the subcontract system to big business, these small
companies must often open even on holidays.
Secondly, these statistics were calculated from official figures
received from the various companies. However, Japanese companies
usually regulate official overtime work in order to reduce the cost
of overtime pay. While companies regulate official overtime, they
often demand of their employees what is known as service overtime,
overtime without pay. According to the ILO Report, this overtime can
reach up to 100 hours per month for bank officials.
According to another official survey in which the workers them-selves
were interviewed (by the Management and Coordination Agency of the
Government), the average working hours per year came to over 2,400.
From this figure we can estimate that a worker's average service
overtime is approximately 350 hours per year.
Thirdly, the official statistics do not reflect the difference in
working hours between male and female workers. Female workers in
Japan, for the most part, work only part-time and in a clerical
capacity. These positions do not generally demand the same amount of
overtime as positions held by male workers. If we view only the
statistics for adult male workers as provided by another governmental
source, the actual working hours per year increase to about 2,600,
500 hours more than indicated by official statistics.
Additionally, it is well known that housing is both limited and
excessively expensive in central city areas where the companies are
located. Thus, workers often spend over 2 hours a day commuting from
their homes to their workplaces. A typical Japanese worker leaves
home at 7 in the morning and returns after 11 at night. Some call
this lifestyle "Seven-Eleven".
We thus estimate that 8 to 10 million Japanese workers, or one fourth
of the male workforce, work over 3,000 hours annually, and amongst
them are surely many potential Karoshi victims.
Without official acknowledgement, No policy on
Karoshi
Karoshi is of course a socio-medical phenomenon. It is now so
widely known in Japan that about a half of all Japanese answer that
they (or their family members) feel anxious over the prospect of
death from overwork (The Yomiuri Shinbun, February 13, 1993).
However, curiously enough, there has not been any official
acknowledgement from the government on "Karoshi", which has not
appeared in any of the official papers published by the Japanese
Government. The Annual Economic Survey of Japan, Annual Report on the
National Life for the Fiscal Year, Annual Report on Labour, or Annual
Report on Health and Welfare, were all published without any mention
of "Karoshi".
Japan's Ministry of Labour informally protested to the ILO when the
ILO printed the word "Karoshi" in its 1993 Report, because the
Japanese Government does not formally acknowledge the existence of
Karoshi. One reason given for this is that the Japanese Medical
Science Society has not yet used the term "Karoshi" as a official
cause of death. Medical doctors have up to now used a more neutral
word "Totsuzen-shi (Sudden Death)" instead, as "Sudden Death" can
occur from multiple causes and cannot be defined solely as death from
overwork. Amongst the statistics produced by the Ministry of Health
and Welfare for their annual report, no figures were given for the
incidence of "Karoshi", reflecting the government's lack of policy on
the issue.
Perhaps the reason for the government's failure to acknowledge
"Karoshi" can be traced to the liability they would assume under the
Workers' Compensation Insurance system. If the Ministry of Labour
were to admit death from overwork as an official cause of death, the
Workers' Compensation Insurance Scheme would be put under great
pressure. I should at first map out the general framework of working
conditions under Japanese Labour Law.
The Labour Standards Act without
general standards
The general framework of working conditions in Japan is set out in
the Labour Standards Act, which was revised 1993. It states that the
maximum working hours is 8 hours a day and 40 hours a week. However,
there are many loopholes in this law.
For example, this law cannot be applied to all workers. In some
service sectors (for example, transportation) and small to medium
sized companies, the regulations cannot be applied. As over 64 per
cent of the working population in Japan work for such companies, we
find many "exceptions" to the Labour Standards Act, with people
working in excess of the prescribed 8 hours a day and 40 hours a
week.
Further, there is no official regulation limiting overtime work.
However, it would be advisable for employer and employee
representa-tives, preferably trade unions, to meet and reach
agreement on limits to overtime. Such an agreement would also
facilitate clearer defini-tion and higher statistical accuracy on
working hours. And within the limits on hours set by the agreement,
workers should obey their employers' request for overtime work.
It is well-known that Japanese trade unions are organized at the
company level, and the unions are weak and often agree to things like
limitless overtime work. For example, one agreement stated that,
"overtime work should be limited to no more than 5 hours a day for
males and 2 hours for females", but "in the case of male workers
during 'special busy' times required for production, maintenance or
repair, the limit can be 15 hours a day." This agreement actually
means that the employer can order workers to work up to 23 hours a
day!
Moreover, current overtime pay rates under the Labour Standards Act
are "more than 25 per cent of the normal wage and the premium for
late night work shall be more than 50 per cent of normal wage". This
"normal wage" in the Japanese context excludes things like family
allowance, transportation allowances and bonuses, which play a great
role in the Japanese wage system. For this reason overtime pay rates
in Japan are exceptionally low in comparison with other countries.
Employers however rely on this overtime in order to adapt their
production to current business trends, and thus can generally count
on their workers to be flexible enough to work overtime when
requested.
Thus, we may conclude that the Japanese management system is
protected by government policies which allow employers to arbitrarily
determine their employee's overtime hours.
The ineffective Workers'
Compensation System
The government has hitherto taken a negative view towards claims
for workers' compensation by Karoshi victims or their dependents.
The basic role of the workers' compensation system is to compensate
victims by providing income and other necessities to maintain them
and their dependents at an acceptable standard of living, with the
further function of attempting to discourage the future occurrence of
similar injuries or diseases by means of its insurance system and
active investigation of working conditions. The criteria governing
compensation coverage, its content and the amounts of funding
allotted to the compensation system, must all be tailored to
fulfilling these goals.
The reality, however, is that the Ministry of Labour seems to be
attempting to restrict the payment of benefits to Karoshi victims.
The Ministry of Labour's criteria for compensation eligibility are
particularly strict, but the Ministry is known to actually be
employing an even stricter formula that appears in a confidential
manual for inhouse use only. There are also administrative barriers
for victims to overcome, such as time-consuming proceedings and the
task of gathering the necessary evidence, a process which proves to
be a tremendous burden on the applicants filing claims. The companies
to which the victims once belonged, naturally wishing to avoid any
publicity which might give them a bad name in the public eye, tend
not to help in a victim's claim for compensation.
The legislation guiding worker's compensation claims in Japan until
1987 provided mainly for drivers in traffic accident, for miners in
cave-in accidents, and for the industrial injuries of machinery
workers, but not for death from overwork. The dependents of a worker,
who died after 24 hours of particularly hard work, were only granted
an insurance payout.
In 1987, the law was revised, but the basic problems still remain.
According to our ergological research, the accumulation of physical
and mental stress due to hard work over a long period of time is a
significant cause of Karoshi. The guideline of new law, however,
states that the only acceptable cases of death from overwork for
which insurance may be claimed are when workers work twice the hours
of a regular working week without a holiday, or triple the regular
working hours the day before dying. Thus, if someone works 5 days
over 16 hours a day but has one holiday and then dies, any claim for
insurance would be unsuccessful. Following the revision of this law,
dissatisfied families of victims and lawyers took their complaints to
court, but they failed to bring about any further revision to the
law.
The number of applicants claiming insurance by reason of Karoshi
annually is about 500, which is only 5 per cent of the 10,000 victims
of Karoshi each year. Further, of those applicants, the number who
make successful claims are only between 30 to 40 per year, that is,
under 10 per cent of the total applications and less than one per
cent of annual Karoshi victims.
Thus, in the eyes of the Japanese government and politicians, there
is no Karoshi problem at all in contemporary Japan. Indeed, official
statistics do not register figures on Karoshi and there seems to be
some deliberate effort on the behalf of policy makers to prevent this
issue from making the government's agenda. This is a typical case of
"non-decision-making" as defined by P. Bachrach & M. Baraz (Power
and Poverty, New York 1970) or of the "concealing mechanism of the
state apparatus" as put forward by Claus Offe (Strukturprobleme des
kapitalistischen Staats, Frankfurt/M 1972).
Five flaws in Japanese Society
The long working hours of the average Japanese worker also appear
to have some negative ramifications for Japanese society as a whole.
Professor John Dower of MIT once characterized five flaws he believed
to be evident in Japan's society related to Japan's rise to economic
superpower status.
The first of these is "wealth without pleasure". While Japan is a
massive producer it has little time for the consumption of these
products. This production has made the country wealthy, but people
cannot gain pleasure from just their incomes or from the nation's
wealth. One Australian trade union publication illustrated a
satirical figure of the workaholic Japanese.
The Overworked Japanese as seen by Australia
(source) The Metal Workers, Organ of the Metals and Engineering Workers' Union, November 1991, p.19.
The second of these flaws is "equality without freedom". In
Japanese society most people earn enough to enjoy a relatively
comfortable standard of living. The gap in salaries between managers
and average workers is perhaps smaller than in the US or other
advanced countries. However, this type of equality is too uniform.
Workers rarely express their own opinions or exhibit any originality
in their work. In fact, this is often discouraged.
This lack of freedom is further displayed during political election
campaigns. During elections it is not uncommon for companies to
'recommend' to their employees certain political parties or
candidates with which that company has some affiliation. Workers who
are reluctant to follow the company's recommendation may be
considered not to be in harmony with the objectives of the company
and even receive a cut in their bonus as a means of re-education. In
short, Japanese workers are expected to act in a uniform manner
without expressing any individuality.
The third flaw is "high level education without originality".
Japanese children attend school approximately 240 days per year, 2
months more than in the US and 3 months more than in France. This
figure is very close to the number of working days per year for
company workers. Japanese children study hard and have a reputation
for exceptional results in international education competitions,
espe-cially in mathematics and history. However, children are taught
a very standardized syllabus, sufficient for entering a good
university and later becoming a good company worker.
The recruitment system of Japanese companies is perhaps different to
that of other countries in that the professional training received at
university in any given field of study has no bearing on a freshman's
recruitment. Rather, a company recruits its new employees based on
the name, or more precisely the ranking of the university they
attended. University rankings are determined by the difficulty of the
institution's entry examination. For this reason school children must
study hard from kindergarten until university entry in order to
ensure a place at a highly ranked institution.
In the battle to win a place at a well regarded university, school
children often attend cramming or supplementary schools known as
"Juku" in addition to their regular schools. This system breeds a
highly educated workforce, but is not conducive to the development of
originality or individual talent.
The fourth of these flaws is "familyism without real family bonds". A
husband may work hard to provide for the well being of his wife and
children, but in doing this, is left with little quality time with
his family. Generally, the working father will only be able to eat
dinner with his wife and children on a Sunday night. Moreover, upon
being transferred to another city, it is common for the father to
leave his wife and children at home and take up a separate residence
(Tansin-funin in Japanese).
Japan has a relatively low rate of divorce, which can perhaps be
largely attributed to the economic dependence of wives on their
husbands' income. Japanese society may, in some terms, be described
as family-oriented, but in actual fact family life has all but
collapsed due to the society's overbearing emphasis on work.
The final and fifth flaw characterized by Professor Dower is
"economic superpower status without leadership in the world". From a
political perspective, due to lack of free time to consider political
or public matters, Japanese people cannot fully utilize the
democratic institutions given to them during the American occupation.
The Japanese government, and politics itself, is too
economy-orientated and fails to address key national and
international political issues.
The average worker shows little interest in diplomatic or
interna-tional issues except when they relate to the domestic economy
or more precisely the well-being of their company. Politics is a
sphere monopolized by professional politicians, not statesmen,
because they have the time to treat public problems and because they
are agents of the business world. However, without free time for
ordinary citizens to debate public issues, there can be no real
democracy.
Four determinants of long working
hours in Japan
Why is it that Japanese people work so hard ? Are they very
diligent by nature, their national character of collectivism ? I do
not take such a cultural approach. The historical background may be
important, but there is no clear evidence that Japanese people before
the Meiji Restoration in 1968 worked harder than the people of other
pre-industial societies. I will now treat what I believe to be the
four essential factors that determine contemporary Japan's long
working hours.
The first is the weak power of workers' organizations and their
inability to launch successful protests to reduce working hours.
Japanese trade unions are isolated within each large company, and
there are generally no unions for workers in small companies. The
unions were, however, successful in securing higher wages for their
members during Japan's period of rapid economic growth, but they made
no effort to bring about shorter working hours.
The second factor relates to the Japanese company's management
system. Within any given company, strong competition within industry
sectors, among sections within firms and factories, and among
team-based small groups are the engine powering its production
process. This organized competition lies at the heart of Japanese
management practices. I have discussed these aspects of Japanese
management in more depth in my book published in English, entitled
"Is Japanese Management Post-fordist?" (edited with Rob Steven,
Mado-sha, Tokyo 1993).
The third point determining Japan's long working hours is the
non-decision-making by government in regard to working hours. In its
5 year economic plan under the Miyazawa Cabinet, the Japanese
government declared that it would bring about 1,800 working hour
year. However, the government effected no policy or regulation geared
towards restricting overtime work or reducing the incidence of
Karoshi. Industrial relations in Japan are perhaps the most
"free-market" or "non-regulated" sphere of a company's operation,
with only minimal "administrative guidance" from the government.
The fourth point, paradoxically, relates to international pres-sure.
Japanese companies and the government appeared to examine the
prospect of reducing working hours only after attacks from the US and
other western governments who argued against the "unequal competition
in the world economy" that Japan's disproportionately high working
hours was causing. For example, the five-day working-week system of
banks and national universities was adopted only after US-Japan trade
friction reached boiling point. Further, the Miyazawa cabinet's plan
to reduce the annual working hours to 1,800 as a part of their 5 year
economic plan was also a product of international pressure.
However, Japan's integration into the world economy has meant that
bank officials and workers of securities or insurance companies must
keep a constant watch on the world market so that they may adjust to
changes in financial markets and to foreign exchange rate
fluctuations. Such workers, as well as those of trading companies and
transnational corporations must often be prepared to work 24 hours a
day to adjust to the movements in world markets, from the Tokyo, the
New York to the London markets. This need for 24 hours alertness
quite obviously causes tremendous mental stress and can be strongly
linked to the recent increase in young Karoshi victims from banks or
securities companies.
The following is a summary of these alternative proposals.
(1) For overworked workers,
Your company will run without your work. Make time to break your
tense work cycle!
Do not work through 24 hours a day! Make sure you give yourself
sufficient free time daily!
Find time to talk with your wife and revive yourself at home with
your children!
Determine your own overtime, rather than have it determined by your
company! After five is your own time!
Do not rely so much on such aids as stamina drinks to get through the
day!
Take a rest before you too become one of the victims of Karoshi!
(2) For housewives,
House work and nursing should be a cooperative effort with your
husband! Divide the household chores!
Dinner should be a pleasurable time for all the family! Please make a
happy household!
Try to ensure that there is good communication between parent and
children!
Make a family culture together with your husband!
(3) For you and your fellow
workers,
Decide with each other on a no-overtime day each week, and negotiate
a regular working cycle! Do not make an agreement that allows
flexible overtime hours! Pressure your union to raise the rate of pay
for overtime!
Attempt to realize your 1,800 working hours per year by such means as
suggesting worksharing schemes!
The employment of more workers under this scheme should allow you to
take annual holidays freely without fear of overburdening your fellow
team members!
Bring the Japanese Constitution into your company! Human rights and
freedoms must be revived at your workplace!
(4) For a comfortable society,
Complete realization of a 40 hour working week by rigid applica-tion
of the Labour Standards Act!
Implement a five-day work week system both at the workplace and at
school!
Restrict any kind of overtime through strong administrative
regulations over working time!
Reform the standard of Workers' Compensation Insurance for Karoshi
victims!
More time at home for men, More time at work for women! Real equality
between men and women begins with the elimination of disproportionate
working hours!
My conclusion is now clear. Democracy in the workplace is heavily
dependent on political democracy. Further, for political democracy,
the elimination of excessive working hours is crucial, at least in
contemporary Japan. Moreover, to realize a free and comfortable
ecological society, we must revise our conception of labour from the
present ergonomic perspective to an ergological one.
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