A large umbrella group of unions in various industrial sectors has accused companies of forcing employees to work overtime without pay and is warning that it will file criminal complaints if the practice continues.
The 790,000-member Japanese Federation of Textile, Chemical, Food, Commercial, Service and General Workers' Unions is prepared to take up the matter with the government's regional labor standards inspection offices, union officials said.
The federation will ask its member unions to demand during this spring's labor-management talks that their employers stop forcing staff to work under such harsh conditions.