I think many people hold the following preconceived notions of what it means to be a physician. Doctors, we believe, are: highly specialized (and only a few can become MDs) have high social status and income have a noble mission to protect human health ...

The government has been pushing job-juggling lately, but I have reason to believe that its interests lie not with workers' health and security.

It's midnight at the convenience store I often patronize near my home in Tokyo's central Shinjuku district. The store's open all day and night, 365 days a year. There is one man I've seen quite a bit of lately — behind the counter, stocking shelves, ...

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, long the champion of labor law deregulation, last year announced it was time to place a legally binding upper limit on overtime hours.

A recent survey corroborates the stereotype many folks have of the Japanese worker: In short, their work is endless and breaks are few and far between.

Workers sued for millions of yen over protests outside the company that fired them take their case to the Supreme Court.

The year 2016 was no walk in the park for workers nationwide. At one extreme, we have Matsuri Takahashi, a 24-year-old worker who felt she had no other choice but to take her life as a result of overwork. In October, the Ministry of Health, ...

I have discussed the "five-year rule" several times before in this column — the revision of the Labor Contract Law (Rodo Keiyaku Ho) enacted in 2013. Under the amendment, any worker employed on serial fixed-term contracts (yūki koyō) for more than five years can ...

As 'karoshi' continues to steal young lives, workers must stand up for their own rights and watch out for their colleagues' wellbeing.

The twisted thinking behind Japan's worst postwar massacre may have its roots in the way the modern world teaches us to judge the worth of others.