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▼ Court Orders Japan Post to Close Wage Gap for Contract Workers
- Category:Event
TOKYO - A Tokyo court ordered Japan Post Co on Thursday to compensate three contract workers who had sued the company for paying them less than full-time employees doing the same work.
The Tokyo District Court awarded the workers some 920,000 yen in total, a small fraction of the roughly 15 million yen sought but a decision that could have major ramifications for the company, nearly half of whose 390,000-strong workforce consists of contractors.
Japanese law forbids businesses from placing an "unreasonable" pay disparity between full-time and contract staff, and the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has pushed to close the gap in an effort to raise overall wages.
In his decision, Presiding Judge Shigeru Haruna said Japan Post did not have a reasonable basis for not paying the workers housing allowances or extra wages for work during the New Year's holidays, or giving them summer and winter breaks, all of which full-timers are entitled to.
The three were awarded 80 percent of extra holiday pay and 60 percent of housing allowance, coming out to between about 40,000 and 500,000 yen each.
Ichiro Natsume, a lawyer representing the workers, hailed the decision as having "a big impact on our society in which non-full-time employment is increasing and wage disparity is growing."
But the court ruled that the company could justify other disparities such as the lack of extra pay for working early and during the night, because "there is a significant difference between the substance of the work that full-time and contract employees undertake and the wideness of the area they may be transferred to."
The workers' request to be guaranteed pay equal to full-timers going forward was dismissed, with the court saying that labor disparities should be resolved through negotiations between businesses and their employees.
The three workers joined Japan Post between 2003 and 2008 and worked at post offices in Tokyo, nearby Chiba Prefecture and Aichi Prefecture in central Japan as clerks and deliverymen.
Japan Post said it would examine the decision and decide on an appropriate course of action.
The mail and parcel delivery service, formerly a government agency until its privatization in 2007, could take a big hit to its already weak earnings if made to compensate the rest of its contractors. Parent company Japan Post Holdings Co depends on banking and insurance businesses for the bulk of its bottom line.
The company is also facing a severe labor shortage as e-commerce websites such as Amazon.com gain in popularity. It has already announced a rate hike on deliveries starting next March to cover rising labor costs and could be pushed to further raise rates.
© KYODO
The Tokyo District Court awarded the workers some 920,000 yen in total, a small fraction of the roughly 15 million yen sought but a decision that could have major ramifications for the company, nearly half of whose 390,000-strong workforce consists of contractors.
Japanese law forbids businesses from placing an "unreasonable" pay disparity between full-time and contract staff, and the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has pushed to close the gap in an effort to raise overall wages.
In his decision, Presiding Judge Shigeru Haruna said Japan Post did not have a reasonable basis for not paying the workers housing allowances or extra wages for work during the New Year's holidays, or giving them summer and winter breaks, all of which full-timers are entitled to.
The three were awarded 80 percent of extra holiday pay and 60 percent of housing allowance, coming out to between about 40,000 and 500,000 yen each.
Ichiro Natsume, a lawyer representing the workers, hailed the decision as having "a big impact on our society in which non-full-time employment is increasing and wage disparity is growing."
But the court ruled that the company could justify other disparities such as the lack of extra pay for working early and during the night, because "there is a significant difference between the substance of the work that full-time and contract employees undertake and the wideness of the area they may be transferred to."
The workers' request to be guaranteed pay equal to full-timers going forward was dismissed, with the court saying that labor disparities should be resolved through negotiations between businesses and their employees.
The three workers joined Japan Post between 2003 and 2008 and worked at post offices in Tokyo, nearby Chiba Prefecture and Aichi Prefecture in central Japan as clerks and deliverymen.
Japan Post said it would examine the decision and decide on an appropriate course of action.
The mail and parcel delivery service, formerly a government agency until its privatization in 2007, could take a big hit to its already weak earnings if made to compensate the rest of its contractors. Parent company Japan Post Holdings Co depends on banking and insurance businesses for the bulk of its bottom line.
The company is also facing a severe labor shortage as e-commerce websites such as Amazon.com gain in popularity. It has already announced a rate hike on deliveries starting next March to cover rising labor costs and could be pushed to further raise rates.
© KYODO
- September 15, 2017
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