Court rules employee worked to death

Fri Nov 30, 12:18 PM ET

TOKYO (Reuters) - A Toyota Motor Corp employee died of overwork after logging more than 106 hours of overtime in a month, a judge ruled Friday, reversing a ministry's earlier decision not to pay compensation to his widow.

The Toyota Labor Standards Inspection office, a local branch of Japan's labor ministry, refused to pay the widow the usual compensation for a spouse's work-related death, saying the man had only logged 45 hours of overtime in the month before he died, Japanese media reported.

But the court ruled that the employee had worked far more than that, said Yomiuri Online, a Japanese news website. The Nagoya District Court in central Japan said the ruling overturned the labor ministry's decision.

"We want to think of how to respond to this ruling by discussing it with relevant agencies," an official at the Toyota Labor Standards Inspection Office told Reuters.

The employee, who was working at a Toyota factory in central Japan, died of irregular heartbeat in February 2002 after passing out in the factory around 4 a.m.

"(The employee) worked for extremely long hours and the relationship between his work and death is strong," Yomiuri Online quoted Judge Toshiro Tamiya as saying.

Overworking is a serious issue in Japan, where an average worker uses less than 50 percent of paid holidays, according to government data.

In fiscal year 2005-2006, the labor ministry received 315 requests for compensation from the bereaved families of workers who died of strokes and other illnesses seen as work-related.

Toyota said in a statement it would further improve the management of its employees' health.

(Reporting by Yoko Kubota; Additional reporting by Chang-Ran Kim)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071130/od_nm/overwork_dc

keep buying those toyotas. send all your money over there and let those guys know you approve of stuff like this.

Edited December 1, 200717 yr by regfootball

I just posted this too

>>"refused to pay the widow the usual compensation for a spouse's work-related death"<<

Just how common is this ???

I hope they kill all their workers! Works for me!

First, let me say that this is horrible. But, given the culture (and the fact that they have a word for this...yikes), I don't think Toyota is the only Japanese company to have done this. Still, this is the type of stuff that gets a lot of media play when you're "#1".

The # of hours he was working is no different than UPS Supervisors & Managers. Normal is 11 to 12 hours, peak can bring them upto 14 per day.

The # of hours he was working is no different than UPS Supervisors & Managers. Normal is 11 to 12 hours, peak can bring them upto 14 per day.

I worked as a UPS driver for over a year, and I was "worked to death" too by nazi-type supervisors, well at least there was this one, and Ted know who I'm talking about. AND, we were unionized. It could be a political move in order to get Toyota plants unionized. But don't think that unions are going to help, if anything managment could treat you more like crap than in a non-union environment.

Edited December 2, 200717 yr by Polish_Kris

I've worked 80-hr weeks and 30 days out of 31 before, and I'm still kicking, but I'm an old-world iron horse.

Toyota- slave driving forward

I've done 80 0hour weeks before but that many hours in one month is freakin nuts

Dec '07 (let's ignore the holidays here) has 21 regular work days. 8 hr/day x 21 days = 168 hours. 106 / 21 = 5.0- so he's working 13 hr/ day assuming he's only working 5 days a week... bump that to 6 and it drops to 12hr/day. Sure doesn't sound like enough to kill a man to me.

No it isn't but it is funny.

I don't think that's that many hours... I have never worked that many hours, but my parents certainly have. Around tax season they'll work 8-6 with a 1 hour break for lunch, take dinner, and come back and work 4 more hours, plus work on the weekends. I'd guesstimate they work 10 hours total on the weekend and 13 hours on the weekdays, so that's 75 hrs/week for a couple months... That's like 140 hours overtime per month for 2 1/2 months.