TOKYO: The Japanese government and ruling parties are considering a law revision to strengthen measures against “customer harassment,” or problematic behavior by customers toward store and other workers, it was learned Monday.
Companies are seen being required to create an environment in which employees can work with a sense of security, both physically and mentally.
The government plans to submit a bill to revise the law on comprehensively advancing labor measures during next year’s ordinary Diet session, aiming to curb customer harassment, which includes customers making unreasonable demands for money and goods and forcing store clerks to kneel and apologize.
On Monday, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s Research Commission on Employment Issues compiled a proposal stressing the need to strengthen measures to protect workers from customer harassment. The proposal is expected to be submitted to Prime Minister KISHIDA Fumio later this week to be reflected in the government’s annual basic economic and fiscal policy guidelines, to be drawn up in June.
In 2019, the same law was revised to require companies to take measures to prevent power harassment, such as establishing an internal system to receive consultations from employees and providing relevant training.
The Labor Policy Council, an advisory panel to the labor minister, is expected to accelerate discussions on the additional law revision from this summer.
According to a survey conducted in January to March by UA Zensen, a federation of labor unions including those from the service industry, 46.8% of the 33,133 responding union members said they had experienced customer harassment in the past two years.
In addition to verbal abuse, threats and intimidation, there are also increasing cases of customers repeating the same complaints, occupying clerks’ time and making slanderous online posts.
Meanwhile, the consumer rights group Consumers Japan, at a labor ministry meeting in April, expressed concern that even legitimate requests from consumers could be perceived as harassment.
Observers say there is a need to clarify the definition of customer harassment and balance measures against it with consumer rights.
Some companies and organizations have already taken measures against customer harassment. East Japan Railway Co. announced last month examples of possible customer harassment and set out a strict policy of not responding to unreasonable demands from customers.
Local governments across the country are also taking measures to protect their employees from malicious complaints by citizens, such as having workers’ name tags show only their last names instead of their full names so that their identities are not exposed on social media.
JIJI Press