McDonald's worker dies of 'overwork':
officials
TOKYO (AFP) - – A store manager with hamburger chain McDonald's
in Japan who died of a brain haemorrhage was a victim of "karoshi"
or death by overwork, a regional labour office said Wednesday.
The woman, employed at an outlet in Yokohama near Tokyo and
reportedly aged 41, had done more than 80 hours of overtime per
month before she collapsed in October 2007 during a training
programme at a different store.
She died in hospital three days later, said an official at the
Kanagawa Labour Bureau, which oversees the Yokohama region.
"We determined her work caused the illness," said the official
in charge of work-related compensation, a decision that makes her
dependent family members eligible to receive a public pension.
"She had early symptoms such as headaches some three weeks
before she collapsed, and we presume she already had the illness at
that point."
McDonald's Co. (Japan) Ltd. declined to comment on the case,
with a spokesman saying only that the company had not been
contacted by authorities and had not confirmed the decision by
itself.
The woman had performed more than 80 hours of overtime a month
on average for the six months before she suffered early symptoms,
although she had a vacation shortly before she collapsed in
October, the official said.
Japan's welfare and labour ministry investigates whether deaths
are caused by excessive work if the victim had performed monthly
overtime of 80 hours or more for the preceding six months, or 100
hours for the previous one month.
The number of deaths, usually through strokes or heart attacks,
in Japan that are classified as "karoshi" has been hovering at
around 150 annually in recent years, according to ministry
data.
McDonald's suffered a blow to its image when a Tokyo court last
year ordered it to pay compensation of more than 70,000 dollars to
an employee who had performed unpaid overtime for several
years.
The plaintiff, who had carried the job title of store manager,
had earlier said he sometimes worked more than 100 hours of unpaid
overtime in a month.
Japan's labour laws do not oblige companies to pay overtime to
workers in managerial posts. McDonald's argued their store chiefs
have a say in management decisions, but the court rejected that
argument.