Working is also called “making a living,” but why do some workers have to pay a dear price for hanging on to their jobs?
In 2013, a 31-year-old journalist was found dead in Japan, collapsed on her bed, holding her mobile phone. She had been covering elections for her broadcast network, NHK. Just this week the real cause of her death, as found by labor standards investigators, was revealed. Yes she had a congestive heart failure, but the underlying cause was “karoshi”— death by overwork.
Miwa Sado, it turns out, clocked in 159 hours of overtime in one month—an average of 5.9 hours a day in excess of her regular working hours, including weekends.
One month before she died she sent an email to her father: “I am too busy and stressed out and think about quitting my job at least once a day, but I guess I have to hang on.”
In 2015, a 24-year-old worker at advertising company Dentsu committed suicide, exasperated with impossible job demands. The suicide was again traced to karoshi. The company faces litigation for its labor practices.
By all means, these two cases in Japan are not the only ones that point to the problem. Our overseas Filipino workers scattered in numerous countries face risks and hardships they likely do not even tell their families. Here at home, many live with whatever working conditions they have because they believe it is still better than not having a job at all.
Only the most heartless of employers will see their workers as faceless, cheap labor who will endure oppressive practices because they need their job more than it needs them. A more ignominious case is when they proclaim compassion when there is only apathy. Sure, some protection is offered by the government, but bureaucratic process discourages even the most diligent of complainants, and it would appear easier to get used to the injustice than assert rights.
One works so that one can earn money for sustenance and find a measure of self-worth and a sense of accomplishment. If these conditions are not present —in what else can we find sense?