Tokyo firm pays out £504k for death of an overworked employee

Tokyo-based Green Display Co has settled a lawsuit by paying ¥76 million $700,000 to the the family of the deceased former employee who died in car accident caused by exhaustion.

24-year-old, Kota Watanabe, was killed in a road accident while riding his motorbike home from an overnight shift in 2014, and struck a utility pole. Judge Jidechika Hashimoto said the company bore some responsibility for its employees’ safe return home after finishing work and urged Green Display Co to settle with the grieving family. His mother Junko filed a lawsuit against his employer Green Display Co., claiming her son was overworked and his long shifts had led to his untimely death. The case was described as a rare example of Japan’s legal system making a case on behalf of workers rights, according to the Watanabe family’s lawyer Takuya Kawagishi.

Judge Hashimoto said the accidentwas a result of Watanabe falling asleep while driving. The company acknowledging that he was indeed in a “state of overwork” and should have been told to find alternative means of travelling home. Following Watanabe’s death the company instituted a manadatory 11-hour gap between shifts to afford employees sufficient times to rest. The company also now requires midnight employees to take taxis home after work. A 2016 survey of 10,000 Japanese firms found that in more than 20 per cent of those surveyed, employees were clocking more than 80 hours overtime per month.

The Japanese have coined the term “Karo-Jikoshi” which translates to “death by overwork”.