OVERWORK DEATHS Government attempts to remove working hours protection from white collar workers have been resisted in an effective campaign. Families of karoshi victims – workers who have died from overwork – have been heavily involved and argued their case in a high profile visit to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. The on-going campaign activities also involve trade unions.

ASBESTOS SUCCESS JOSHRC has worked with organisations including BANJAN, the Ban Asbestos Network Japan, national asbestos disease sufferers’ groups and their families and international asbestos campaigner to secure a national asbestos ban. The groups have also pressed for and won compensation for affected workers and communities.

PUBLICATIONS JOSHRC produces a monthly newsletter and health and safety guides, on issues from asbestos to strain injuries and compensation (all in Japanese). ANROAV produces an English-language newsletter, available online.

JOSHRC
Small group has a big impact on working conditions

Working in Japan

Many of today’s fast and furious work methods originated in Japan. Mick Holder looks at how JOSHRC, a small, union-backed advocacy organisation, has ensured safe and healthy work has survived on the agenda.

The Japan Occupational Safety and Health Resource Centre (JOSHRC) has been the foremost worker health and safety advocacy and campaigning organisation in Japan since 1990. JOSHRC has just one worker, Sugio Furuya, but he is the lynchpin in what has become a highly visible and effective national network of centres and grassroots campaigns.

More than 20 regional centres provide assistance to workers and unions, and access to clinics and medical help. All of these centres are independent, set up and funded by union activists and worker-sympathetic medical and legal professionals. The regional centres vary in size, with five full-time staff in the Tokyo centre and four in Kanagawa, down to centres run by unpaid campaigners in the regions. The network also includes a number of asbestos victims’ groups.

Working in Japan Hazards 101 Jan-March 2008 Order the photospread

Further information

Japan Occupational Safety and Health Resource Centre (JOSHRC), Z Bldg. 5F, 7-10-1 Kameido, Koto-ku, Tokyo 136-0071, Japan.

Email: joshrc@jca.ax.apc.org
Online: www.jca.apc.org/joshrc

Asian Network for the Rights of Occupational Accident Victims (ANROAV). www.anroav.org

Hazards issue 101 contents • More photofeatures