If overtime exceeds 45 hours per month or 360 hours per year, the company is required to submit an « overtime agreement with special conditions » that allows employees to work overtime up to the agreed limit. Even with this agreement, employees cannot work more than 45 hours of overtime more than six times a year. It is also necessary to indicate the additional rate of pay for overtime of more than 45 hours. In this case, the total working time per week would exceed the legal working time by 40 hours per week. Thus, if no agreement of 36 agreements is concluded with an employee and submitted to the Labour Inspectorate responsible for each site, this would constitute a violation of the Labour Standards Act. If you violate all 36 agreements, you will be detained for up to six months or fined up to 300,000 yen. If you only enter into all 36 agreements and do not report it to the Labour Standards Inspection Office, you will be punished in the same way. This could have been the end of the story, but an labor lawyer in Osaka was able to get a copy of the submitted agreement through a request for information process, and the story eventually made headlines. 1. What is an overtime agreement between the directorate of work and overtime? If employees work more than 40 hours a week, the company is supposed to pay overtime to employees, unless they work in a management position. Businesses that intend to work overtime on a regular basis must enter into a written agreement between employees and management, commonly referred to as « section 36, » and submit it to the Bureau d`inspection des normes du travail. This agreement is often referred to as « Article 36 » because it refers to Article 36 of Japan`s Labor Law. This report should be renewed annually.
« Accord 36 » is a document that takes its name from section 36 of the Act respecting labour standards. This provision stipulates that any work of more than 8 hours per day or 40 hours per week or on public holidays requires a prior written agreement between the employer and the trade union concerned. « Agreement 36 » usually takes the form of a one-sided standard contract, stamped by the company and its employee representative and submitted to the local employment office. (2) New elements have been added to the agreement with special conditions. Agreement on employment services is to be reached on the following points. * Announcement by the Minister of Labour on overtime on the basis of an agreement This agreement is called the « 36 agreements (read: Sabu-roku kyotei) » because it is provided for in Article 36 of the Law on Labour Standards. The official name is « Notice of Agreement Concerning Overtime and Vacation Work ». The Labour Standards Act stipulates that working time must be included in the « statutory working time » of eight hours per day and no more than 40 hours per week.
Last week, Japanese newspapers reported that in 2012, a national medical research center on the outskirts of Osaka entered into a so-called « Deal 36 » with its doctors and nurses, allowing these employees to work up to 300 hours of overtime per month and up to 2,070 hours of overtime per year. (To be clear, these hours are in addition to employees` normal hours of work.) 4. CAN AN EMPLOYER USE OVERTIME TO AVOID SIGNING UP FOR SHAKAI HOKEN? Nein.Es is illegal for an employer to use overtime (especially « overtime included in salary » – see below) as a way to make an employee work longer while claiming that the employee does not meet the shakai Hoken registration limits. Overtime cannot be used as a « legal loophole » to artificially empty working hours in order to escape responsibility for Shakai Hoken`s registration. Once an employee`s total number of hours of work per week exceeds 30 hours, an employer is required by law to register the employee with Shakai Hoken.5. CAN I BE FORCED TO WORK OVERTIME? Nein.Es is illegal for an employer to force an employee to work overtime unless there is an agreement signed by an elected person representing the majority of workers in the workplace. Since this law is governed by section 36 of the Labour Standards Act, these types of agreements are referred to as « section 36 agreements ». As long as there is no « agreement with section 36 », it is illegal to force a worker to work overtime, and there can be no overtime at all unless it is voluntary. In addition, the employer must explain, among other things, the specific reasons why employees are required to work overtime or statutory days off, what types of tasks are required of employees, and the hours during which such employees may have to work overtime on a day (section 16 of the Ordinance on the Application of the Labour Standards Act).6. . .