Cabinet Order Setting the Minimum Rates of Premium Wages for Overtime Work and Work on Days Off under Article 37, Paragraph (1) of the Labor Standards Act
労働基準法第三十七条第一項の時間外及び休日の割増賃金に係る率の最低限度を定める政令
A Cabinet Order (政令) that sets the lowest premium an employer must add to the normal wage for overtime (25%) and for work on days off (35%) under Article 37(1) of the Labor Standards Act.
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What this law does
- An employer that extends a worker's working hours beyond the statutory working hours under Article 33 or Article 36(1) of the Labor Standards Act must pay premium wages for those hours at a rate at least 25% over the normal wage per working hour.((1), Labor Standards Act Art. 37(1), Labor Standards Act Art. 32) (the provisions it rests on)
Read the full overview
- An employer that has a worker work on a day off — the at least one day off a week, or four in four weeks, that Article 35 of the Labor Standards Act requires — under Article 33 or Article 36(1) of that Act must pay premium wages for that work at a rate at least 35% over the normal wage per working day.((1), Labor Standards Act Art. 37(1), Labor Standards Act Art. 35) (the provisions it rests on)
- Article 33 lets an employer extend hours or use days off, to the extent necessary, when a disaster or other unavoidable event creates a temporary need, with the permission of the relevant government agency (行政官庁); if there is no time to get permission, it must notify the agency without delay afterwards, and the agency may then order equivalent rest or days off if it finds the extension improper. Article 36(1) lets an employer do so, as far as a written agreement allows, with the union organized by a majority of the workers at the workplace, or else with a person representing that majority, once the agreement is filed with that agency as a Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare Order (厚生労働省令) sets.(Labor Standards Act Art. 33(1), Labor Standards Act Art. 33(2), Labor Standards Act Art. 36(1)) (the provisions it rests on)
- The Labor Standards Act lets this Order set the rate only within 25% to 50%. Where the hours worked by extension exceed 60 in a month, the Act itself requires a premium of at least 50% for the hours beyond 60, in place of this Order's 25% — unless a written agreement with the workers' majority union or representative substitutes paid leave for that extra premium and the worker takes it (Article 37(3)).((1), Labor Standards Act Art. 37(1), Labor Standards Act Art. 37(3)) (the provisions it rests on)
- Family allowances, commuting allowances and other wages a Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare Order names are left out of the wage the premium is calculated on (Article 37(5) of the Labor Standards Act).(Labor Standards Act Art. 37(5)) (the provisions it rests on)
Overtime premium ratePremium for work on days offPremium wagesOvertime agreement
Amendments
A Japanese law is changed by another law or order that rewrites it — an . No amendment to this law is waiting to come into force. Its latest amendments are below. This law's amendments page lists every amendment e-Gov records and, for those whose changes this site has read, shows them provision by provision, in Japanese and English.
1 amendments already in force
6 January 2001
The text on this site
e-Gov gives no title for this amendment
Who it applies to
It applies to
- Employers that extend working hours or have workers work on days off under Article 33 or Article 36(1) of the Labor Standards Act, and the workers they pay for that work.((1), Labor Standards Act Art. 37(1)) (the provisions it rests on)
It does not apply to
- The Labor Standards Act, Article 37 included, does not apply to businesses that employ only relatives living with the employer, or to domestic workers, and Article 37 does not apply to seafarers under the Mariners Act (船員法) (Article 116 of the Labor Standards Act).(Labor Standards Act Art. 116(1), Labor Standards Act Art. 116(2)) (the provisions it rests on)
Special rules and exceptions (3)
- The Labor Standards Act's rules on working hours, rest breaks and days off in its Chapter 4, where Article 37 sits, do not apply to workers in agriculture or in livestock, sericulture and fisheries businesses (forestry excepted), to supervisors and managers and those handling confidential matters, and to monitoring or intermittent workers whose employer has the agency's permission (Article 41).(Labor Standards Act Art. 41(1), Labor Standards Act Appended Table 1) (the provisions it rests on)
- Workers in the high-level professional system — a specialist job, under a resolution passed by four-fifths of a workplace committee and filed with the agency, with the worker's consent — are outside Chapter 4's rules on working hours, rest, days off and late-night premium wages, as long as the employer takes the health measures the resolution requires (Article 41-2).(Labor Standards Act Art. 41-2(1)) (the provisions it rests on)
- Where a written agreement with the majority union or representative lets workers take paid leave instead of the extra premium for extended hours beyond 60 in a month, an employer need not pay that extra premium for the hours the leave taken stands for (Article 37(3)).(Labor Standards Act Art. 37(3)) (the provisions it rests on)
How it is enforced (2)
- The Order has no penalty, official or procedure of its own: paying less than these rates breaks Article 37 of the Labor Standards Act, punished under Article 119 of that Act by imprisonment (拘禁刑) of up to six months or a fine of up to 300,000 yen. Where an agent or employee broke it acting for the business, the business owner is fined as well under Article 121, unless it took the measures needed to prevent the breach, and is punished as an offender itself if it knew and did nothing or incited it. A court may also order the employer, at the worker's request, to pay the unpaid premium and an additional sum (付加金) of the same amount (Article 114); for now the request must be made within three years of the breach, not the five Article 114 states (supplementary provision Article 143(2)).((1), Labor Standards Act Art. 37(1), Labor Standards Act Art. 119(1)(i), Labor Standards Act Art. 121(1), Labor Standards Act Art. 121(2), Labor Standards Act Art. 114(1), Labor Standards Act Suppl. Prov. Art. 143(2)) (the provisions it rests on)
- A worker's claim to unpaid premium wages, like other wages under the Labor Standards Act apart from retirement allowances, lapses if not exercised within three years from when it could first be exercised: supplementary provision Article 143(3) reads Article 115's five years as three for now.(Labor Standards Act Art. 115(1), Labor Standards Act Suppl. Prov. Art. 143(3)) (the provisions it rests on)
How it connects to other laws
Cites this lawLawThis law cites it
Where the translation comes from
- 5
The Ministry of Justice's translation is shown only where the Japanese it translates matches the law in force today. Everywhere else the English is a machine translation, marked on the paragraph itself.
Only the Japanese is the law, and no lawyer has reviewed the machine translation.
Sources
Everything this page rests on
- e-Gov (Digital Agency)労働基準法第三十七条第一項の時間外及び休日の割増賃金に係る率の最低限度を定める政令 — the text in force from 2001-01-06Original
- e-Gov (Digital Agency)労働基準法第三十七条第一項の時間外及び休日の割増賃金に係る率の最低限度を定める政令 — revision historyOriginal
- Machine translation, not official
- Machine translation, corrected on review, not official
- Written for this site with AIDescriptions of each law, written for this site
- Written for this site with AIEnglish title of a law in this collection, written for this site
- Worked out by this site from e-Gov's text