Japan gov’t wants companies to take measures against customer harassment

TOKYO — Japan’s labor ministry is aiming to submit draft legislation requiring businesses to have measures in place against “customer harassment,” or nuisance behavior caused by customers or clients toward employees. However, as penalties against harassing customers will likely not be included, ensuring effective implementation will be key.

The idea to call on businesses to institute the measures has largely been agreed upon at the Labor Policy Council, an advisory body to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare where representatives of labor and management discuss issues. The labor ministry will summarize debate on the matter by the year’s end and aims to present draft revisions of the labor measures advancement act and related laws during regular Diet sessions next year.

According to a report issued by a labor ministry expert panel this August, customer harassment is defined as having three elements: First, it involves related parties such as customers, clients and facility users. Secondly, the harassment includes words or actions opposing social norms, and thirdly, there is damage to the working environment.

Some concrete examples of the second element are violent acts such as punching and kicking, asking employees to assume the “dogeza” floor-kneeling position in apology, psychological attacks on employees by posting their names or other information about them online, threatening conduct such as loudly berating a phone operator, persistently making frequent complaints, and language or actions which bind employees, such as by staying on site or on the phone for long periods of time.

The ministry will not impose penalties on customers for harassment, instead it is asking businesses to institute countermeasures, concrete examples of which are to be included in guidelines announced after the legal revisions. The ministry is expected to ask them to clarify and disseminate those countermeasures and to prepare systems to deal with cases of customer harassment and establish support desks, among other initiatives.

An emerging point of contention is whether or not to require business partners and others that have no employment relationship to cooperate in investigations and other matters with companies whose workers are the subject of harassment. The labor representatives of the advisory panel call for this to be mandatory, while those representing employers call for it to be merely subject to an “obligation to make an effort,” effectively making the process optional. The issue remains under debate.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government in October became the first prefectural-level government in Japan to create a customer harassment prevention ordinance, which takes effect next financial year. It states that “no person shall engage in customer harassment anywhere” and sets certain duties upon customers and business operators, workers and the Tokyo government. It also recognizes that valid complaints can help improve businesses and warned companies to not violate customers’ and others’ rights. However, it carries no penalties.

A cross-party study group in the Hokkaido Prefectural Assembly this month presented an ordinance bill on preventing customer harassment, and it is expected to be passed at the assembly in the northernmost prefecture to be convened on Nov. 26.

(Japanese original by Aya Shiota, Lifestyle, Science & Environment News Department)