OKAYAMA, Japan — A Japanese railway driver who sued over being docked one minute’s pay will have the money returned posthumously, a court has ruled. But his request for 2.2 million yen (more than $17,000) for emotional distress was dismissed, Kyodo News reports.
The driver sued last year after he was docked 56 yen (currently worth 45 U.S. cents) for a one-minute delay in departing a station on a deadhead move to a rail yard [see “Japanese rail driver sues …,” Trains News Wire, Nov. 11, 2021]. The Okayama District Court ruled the penalty was unjustified because the man was still performing labor in correcting an error which led to the delay, and therefore was subject to compensation.
Rail operator JR West has since revised its practice in which delays were not treated as time at work, but said it was planning to do so even before the lawsuit.
The driver, in his 50s, died of an illness earlier this year, the news service reports.
JR West is strict about delays and used to punish drivers who caused the slightest delay by removing them from the driver’s job and making them clean toilets or plow weeds. These led to Japan’s one of the worst train accident, the 2005 Fukuchiyama Line derailment. This was caused by the train going too fast to make up for a 90-second delay.
How do you say “PSR disease” in Japanese?
Has nothing to do with PSR and everything to do with the work culture is Japan…which is any minute lost from meaningful work is business lost.
JR Rail has the best on time passenger rail service second to none, I’ve traveled on JR while visiting Japan as well as Amtrak and the rail system there is second to none, Amtrak is a big taxpayer funded joke, always have, always will.
Glad he took a stand on principle, labor laws in even places like Japan and the UK seem archaic, like “piece work” in England I heard from Bulgarians who had worked a summer at our hotel in Upstate NY, the hotel housekeepers were being paid per room as opposed per hour, with the maids waiting hours unpaid to service guest rooms.
Too bad he isn’t around to enjoy it.
Whatever happened to “you were on the clock as soon as you signed in or stepped on your equipment?”