Japan to Urge Firms Not to Make Workers Buy Their Products

Tokyo, Nov. 25 (Jiji Press)--Japan’s labor ministry will enhance measures against companies that make workers use their own money and buy products they sell to reach their sales quotas, it was learned Monday.

The ministry will encourage companies to take action against such practices by defining them as a form of so-called power harassment, or abuse of employees by people in authority, in guidelines based on a labor measures promotion law.

Reported cases of such practices include those of employees forced to sign contracts for car insurance or mutual aid, buy unsold Christmas cakes and cover payments for orders taken wrongly in restaurants.

The guidelines will say that such practices would be regarded as power harassment if three conditions are met--when the practices are based on superior-subordinate relationships, when they go beyond the scope necessary and reasonable for business and when they harm the work environments of the employees.

Companies must take action if they are found to have committed practices that constitute power harassment.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]