Measures for dealing with COVID-19　#2

COVID-19 #2 (Update from the Ministry of Health Welfare and Labor)

Notifying you of the update from the Ministry

The full details (Japanese only) in the link below.https://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/seisakunitsuite/bunya/kenkou_iryou/dengue_fever_qa_00007.html

The main points: As you will have already seen in the media, if you have a fever of 37.5 or above for 4 days, are feeling lethargic or have trouble breathing, please confirm with your local public health office. These details are in the Q&A that has been created for Organizations. In order to try to prevent further spreading of the virus Companies are being asked to ensure that their employees and their employees’ families and friends are also aware of the procedures.

In the last PMP News re COVID-19 we did not touch on Article 33-1 of the Labor Standards Act so I would like to bring it to your attention.

For the prevention of further COVID-19 infection and taking care of those persons who are infected, there are provisions in Article 33 (1) of the Labor Standards Act “If there is an extraordinary need due to disaster or other unavoidable events….” That allows for organizations who have workers involved to work longer hours due to this emergency situation. However, we would like to remind you that while this emergency provision does exist you need to be careful not to exceed the maximum overtime which in this case would be 80 hours.

Those organizations not involved in the prevention of the further spread of this virus, are instead looking at reducing business travel, entertainment and other situations where people come into contact with each other. We are seeing more organizations allowing Working from Home. As with all these situations taking prompt action is important, but allowing employees to work from home, being as flexible as possible around starting and finishing times and also using this as an opportunity to take annual leave are all options.

We would like organizations to use this as an opportunity to consider what are their most effective and efficient ways of working.