The top or most interesting stories in Japan from January 9th
– Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is hoping to extend Japan’s “white collar exemption system” to other sectors, meaning highly skilled workers earning over a certain amount will be paid under a merit system rather than an hourly rate.
Japan’s current labor laws limit workers to eight hours a day / 40 hours a week but this is often completely ignored. Under Abe’s proposal, highly skilled workers earning over ¥10.75 million (approx. AUD$110k) will be paid based on their performance and not be entitled to overtime and be exempt from the hourly limit.
The government is compensating for this by ‘ensuring’ workers stay healthy with regular check ups and take 104 days off per year. Yet, as discussed in yesterday’s wrap, leave is often something workers abscond from as per a sort of unspoken employer expectation.
– The Japan News has this graph on how the three leadership candidates for the leading opposition party – the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) – differ on two hot political issues and structural reform inside the DPJ.
– Japan’s leading public broadcaster, the NHK (official English name is Japan Broadcasting Co.), reportedly censored political jokes from two of Japan’s leading comedy duo, Bakusho Mondai.
Just recently, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was openly criticised in the middle of a rock concert he was attending by Southern All Stars’ vocalist, Keisuke Kuwata. According to The Japan Times‘ Reiji Yoshida, Kuwata suddenly changed his lyrics mid-song to an older one, singing “(A politician) talking nonsense like dissolving the Diet!”, an unsubtle swipe at Abe’s decision to dissolve the Diet last year for his snap election.
But Abe has come under fire for being too thin skinned when it comes to criticism, simply removing his earpiece live on national television when he apparently didn’t like what the reporter was telling him.
-Sanyukai, a Tokyo-based non-profit, is hoping to raise funds to provide Japan’s homeless with proper graves.
– Two vessels have left Japan for the Antarctic to ‘research’ whales, sans harpoon guns. I found this article from Japan’s Kyodo news wire service interesting from an Australian perspective because of the way the departure is covered. This piece from The Wall Street Journal‘s Japan Real Time blog is more like something you’d expect from Australia, mentioning the International Court of Justice’s ruling which deemed Japan’s whaling fleets’ ‘research’ were not at all scientific.
This wrap will be back on Monday with the weekend’s biggest stories and developments.
