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The story
A male photographer at a long-established bridal company has filed suit at the Tokyo District Court seeking 2.2 million yen in damages from his employer, saying an executive harassed him over his paternity leave request, including telling him he’d “tear it to shreds.” He also held a press conference on October 7, the day the suit was filed. On 5ch, the report sparked an ongoing debate split between those supporting the man’s right to take paternity leave and those criticizing a full year of leave as something that creates staffing shortages on the ground.
“A paternity leave form? If you hand that to me I’ll tear it to shreds! Employees are supposed to work!” —
Mr. A, a male photographer at a long-established bridal company, says an executive at the company said this to him during a round of entertainment golf, after he had requested paternity leave.
On October 7, Mr. A filed suit at the Tokyo District Court against his employer, Motegi Shoji (Shinjuku, Tokyo), seeking 2.2 million yen in damages, arguing that the president’s and others’ remarks constituted “paternity harassment” (patahara — harassment targeting men over their involvement in childcare), obstructing his ability to take leave. He also held a press conference in Tokyo that same day.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Because it's made up.
An old-guard villain that cartoonish doesn't actually exist in real life.
>He is seeking 2.2 million yen in damages from his employer, Motegi Shoji (Shinjuku, Tokyo), filing suit at the Tokyo District Court, and also held a press conference in Tokyo that same day.
It comes out of social insurance. At my company you also get a top-up from the company on top of that, so you get 100% of your pay.
And the rest of us end up carrying the burden of supporting these guys. Unbearable.
It just makes things brutal on the ground.
If a couple announces they're both taking a full year off, I'd want them transferred out beforehand so a replacement can actually be brought in lol
Do you not have kids or something?
It's people like you who are the reason the birth rate keeps dropping.
So dumb.
In practice they end up hiring someone to cover that person's position, so it's completely normal to get reassigned when you come back. At a company this small, you're basically just a drain on money.
What do you even do with a whole year off?
If anything it'd get depressing.
Wouldn't you want to get back to work sooner?
If you want to study, you get 500,000 yen a year for learning expenses (plus a separate 300,000 yen for language study), so I signed up for an online academy with it and got a national qualification.
You study on your time off?
That doesn't sound like aiming for a comfortable life — just sounds like chasing every penny you can squeeze out of the system.
Calling self-investment a "cheap" use of your time…
What kind of brain do you have lol
That's only for people who want to study. It's entirely optional.
And you can't normally even use up that 500,000-yen yearly allowance while working anyway.
Stop writing articles like they're creative writing assignments lol
The real name's right there lol
>He is seeking 2.2 million yen in damages from his employer, Motegi Shoji (Shinjuku, Tokyo), filing suit at the Tokyo District Court, and also held a press conference in Tokyo that same day.
Aren't you mixing this up with Bengo4.com (a legal news site)?
Also, TV Asahi and Nippon TV reported on it too:
"Paternity harassment" employee sues his company — "I'll tear your paternity leave form to shreds"
https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/e15f8161ae2e27b995667275a40cafdd937fab8c
For me it was the opposite — because I'm actually good at my job, I got picked for the squad covering for these guys. Reassignment, commute changes, new clients to deal with. It genuinely sucks. People who take a full year at once — normally you split it up.
But now idiots are seriously showing up who take a full continuous year. Japan itself is finished.
That can't be helped though, can it?
It's an established rule, so of course some people are going to use it.
I don't get the point of trying to stop them out of selfishness.
Is that basically like defying the government or something?
The company that lets that happen is the one at fault.
Normally you just hire more people.
Isn't that because there are guys who slack off playing pachinko and goof around instead of actually doing any childcare?
Isn't it up to the person what they do on their days off?
Though I get why a spouse would be angry about it.
So there are guys whose "leave" has nothing to do with childcare at all, and I'm guessing that's what made the wife snap — like, "then this isn't paternity leave at all!"
The wife snapping is understandable, but it makes no sense for the company to demand employees report on their daily life while on leave.
Probably there's barely anything to do. I'd guess it ends up being like watching TV with your wife all day.
Housework can honestly be knocked out solo in just over an hour.
Right after birth the baby cries at night, so you just help out with sleep.
If you carry the baby on your back while working it settles right down too. Though with jobs where you can't piggyback the baby, it just cries and demands attention nonstop, which is rough.
Someone has to be hired to cover while you're gone.
So when you come back, are you going to fire the person they hired?
Way too self-centered.
Not keeping the seat open is illegal.
That's literally what fixed-term temp staffing exists for.
A year of childcare leave is a legal right, set by law.
Since the seat has to stay open for someone coming back after a year, it's also hard to hire someone new in the meantime. It's hopeless.
Isn't childcare leave not something the company pays for, though?
During childcare leave the company doesn't actually have to pay wages at all, though.
Background and Key Issues
Paternity leave for men is a right under Japan’s Child Care and Family Care Leave Act, granted in principle until the child turns one year old. Income during the leave doesn’t come from the company’s payroll but from childcare leave benefits paid out of employment insurance. Disadvantageous treatment or dismissal on account of taking leave is prohibited under the same law, so treating a returning employee as having “no seat” isn’t legally permissible either. Much of the backlash in the thread wasn’t really engaging with how the system is actually structured, but came instead from the lived frustration of workplaces that can’t backfill staff when someone goes on long-term leave. The term “patahara” (paternity harassment) itself is a relatively new concept that emerged as men’s uptake of paternity leave spread more broadly in society, and the fact that the employer named in the report had a workforce of 196 women and only 20 men out of 216 employees adds useful context for how a male employee’s paternity leave was received in that workplace.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Speed+) thread ““A paternity leave form? I’ll tear it to shreds!” “In my day there was no such thing as paternity leave” — Executives at long-established bridal company accused of harassment, male employee sues.”
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