Labor office set to recognize overwork death of foreign intern+

MITO, Japan, July 2 Kyodo -
A labor office in Ibaraki Prefecture has decided to recognize the 2008 death of
a Chinese national, who was working as an intern at a local firm under a
government-authorized training program, as due to overwork, marking the first
case involving a foreign intern in which overwork has been recognized as the
cause of death, people involved said Friday.
The male trainee, Jiang Xiaodong, died in June 2008 as a result of working
illegally long hours, according to what the Kashima labor standards inspection
office has found following a claim for workers' compensation filed by his
bereaved family last August.
According to a group of lawyers that has highlighted the way the program is
abused as a source of cheap labor by some businesses, this will be the first
case in which a foreign intern under the program is recognized as having died
from overwork.
Jiang came to Japan as a trainee under the program in 2005 and was working at a
plating factory of a metal processing firm called Fuji Denka Kogyo in the city
of Itako when he died of cardiac arrest in company housing at age 31, the
office said.
He had worked more than 100 hours of overtime in his last month, it said.
According to his family's legal representative, Jiang had worked about 150
hours of overtime monthly since becoming an intern in his second year at the
firm, and taken only two days off a month.
On Friday, the labor office sent to prosecutors papers on the company concerned
and its 66-year-old president for alleged violation of the Labor Standards Act
by having the intern work long hours and also by failing to pay him overtime
wages, it said.
The president told Kyodo News that when he suggested to Jiang that he assign at
least one other trainee to the line he was in charge of so that they could
operate a shift system, Jiang said he preferred to work alone. The president
also said that Jiang did not exhibit any problems at health checkups.
==Kyodo
2010-07-02 23:41:23