No more deaths from “overwork” while building Olympic arena – Japan

A Japanese sports official promised on Friday to work with a stadium builder for the 2020 Olympics to eliminate "overwork death." The parents of a 23-year-old Japanese Olympic stadium worker who committed suicide asked the government in July to acknowledge his suicide as "karoshi" or "death from overwork" with the media saying he had worked 200 hours one month before his death. "To our regret, illegal overtime was recognized as a result of inspection by the Ministry of Labor," said Tadashi Mochizuki, director of the stadium manager of the Japan Sport Council (JSC), which is part of a joint venture with the Taisei Corp. "We, JSC and Taisei, take it with sincerity and we will do our best (to comply with the law) in the construction process." Authorities unveiled a model of the new stadium in the Japanese capital, to be completed in November 2019, after construction started in December 2016. The rapidly aging Japanese society has left employers struggling for acute shortages of labor . It officially recognizes two types of "karoshi": cardiovascular disease linked to overwork, and suicide after work-related mental stress. Employers face few restrictions on overtime and payment, so more than one-fifth of the company's staff exceeded a government's overtime threshold of 80 hours a month, an official report showed in 2016. The trend was highlighted by a high profile of death by overworked in 2015 in advertising giant Dentsu Inc. On October 5, NHK public broadcaster said a 31-year-old reporter died four years ago of overwork . To address the problem, the government plans radical reforms in work practices, including overtime limitations and better pay for part-time and contract workers.

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