He sits in an office of a major Japanese sportswear maker, but reports to no one. He is assigned odd tasks like translating into English the manual on company rules like policies on vacations and daily hours, although he has minimal foreign-language skills.
He was sidelined as retribution for taking paternity leaves after each of his two sons was born, he says. Now he is the plaintiff in one of the first lawsuits in Japan over “pata-hara,” or paternity harassment, as it is known there. The first hearing is scheduled for this week.
His case is unusual in a country that values loyalty to the company, long hours and foregone vacations, especially from male employees. He asked not to be named for fear of further retribution.
Photo: AP
The man, whose sons are now four and one, was initially assigned to a sales-marketing section at Asics, where he rubbed shoulders with athletes, but was suddenly sent to a warehouse after his first paternity leave in 2015, according to his lawsuit. After he hurt his shoulder, he was assigned to the section he is in now, where he says he is forced to sit and do little.
He wants his original assignment back and ¥4.4 million (US$41,000) in damages.
Asics said it plans to fight the allegations in court, adding that it was “regrettable” no agreement could be reached, despite repeated efforts.
“Our company remains committed to pushing diversity, and we plan to foster a work environment and support system so all workers can stay productive during pregnancy, childbirth and child-rearing,” it said in a statement.
Makoto Yoshida, a professor of social studies at Ritsumeikan University, said that acceptance of paternity leave will take decades in Japan because it goes to the heart of corporate culture, which includes not being able to refuse transfers.
“A boss is apt to think a worker who takes paternity leave is useless. The boss is likely never to have taken paternity leave himself,” Yoshida said. “And once an office sees a worker getting bad treatment for taking paternity leave, no one else is going to want to do it.”
Japanese law guarantees men and women up to one year leave from work after a child is born. Parents are not guaranteed pay from their companies, but are eligible for government aid while off.
Many workers do not take allocated paid vacations or parental leave. Only 6 percent of eligible fathers take paternity leave, according to Japanese government data. More than 80 percent of working women take maternity leave, although that is after about half quit to get married or have a baby.
While companies are encouraged to promote parental leave and many have expressed their support for taking time off to raise families, critics say the directives are not trickling down to employees on the ground.
The government, concerned about a drastically declining birthrate, among the lowest in the world, is even considering making parental leave mandatory.
LAWS ELSEWHERE
In the US, federal laws do not guarantee paid parental leave, but many companies offer such benefits. European nations vary, but most offer some type of government-backed paid paternity leave. Sweden and other Scandinavian nations boast the best record for supporting parents. Canada also has a relatively generous system for paid parental leave. Other companies in Japan — a subsidiary of major electronics company NEC Corp and chemical maker Kaneka Corp — have recently been accused of paternity harassment.
They deny the allegations.
The case getting the most attention is that of Glen Wood, a Canadian, who is fighting to get his brokerage manager job back at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley.
Wood was still negotiating with his bosses to take three or four weeks of paternity leave when his son was born six weeks premature in Nepal.
Wood said that his bosses were extremely reluctant to let him take time off, but he decided he had to go. The doctors told him he had to go immediately to see his baby in intensive care.
Wood returned to work five months later, in March 2016, after his son recovered and could be safely brought to Japan.
However, he was barraged with what he alleges is harassment at work. His job assignment was changed. He was chided for not showing up at meetings he had not been invited to. He was ordered to take DNA tests to prove he was really the father, which he did, as well as psychiatric tests by two doctors, who both said he was fine. He was dismissed last year.
“Whenever anybody puts up their hand and says they’re harassed, basically that person becomes the weirdo, and that person ends up getting harassed,” Wood said.
Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley denies any paternity harassment and has stressed it intends to fight the allegations in court.
PETITION SUPPORT
Wood has gotten thousands of signatures on an online petition expressing support for his case and opposing harassment, including comments from Japanese, mostly fathers, who said they were facing similar experiences.
Taken off the career track, the father who works at Asics says he feels helpless. Still, he is proud of how he did all the cooking, cleaning and grocery shopping while he was on leave.
Naoto Sasayama, his lawyer, said his client believes in standing up for what is right.
“He was being made an example of,” Sasayama said. “This case raises the important question of whether a person must value company over family.”
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion