the environmental series to global 3000 on d, w, and online with just a click away. find out best documentary on youtube. yeah. really good morning. see the world as he's never seen before. right now, he d. w, documentary visited avenues, asia coming up today. japan's overworked and exhausted teachers many are having to do more than a $100.00 of overtime a month and some a big but it with their lives. we ask, can japan and change its work culture and cub debts from boulevard?

ah, my british manager, welcome to the dublin, use a shirt ledger could join us over work in japan is a real problem and a deadly one at that. there is even a japanese word for it. carol, she meaning death from overwork. it's a problem. the defect japan's teachers in particular, they are expected to not just teach their students, but also lead them during after school activities. cleaning duties and mentoring. one investigation found school teachers working an average of a 123 hours overtime each month. well above the government defined carol, she line of 80 hours essentially, meaning a high risk of death from overwork. if one works more than 80 overtime hours a month. for some teachers though, that risk does turn real a brain hemorrhage, killed middle school teacher,

yoshio. kudos in 2007 at just 40 years of age. his diary entries told of a punishing workday that started early and could last until nearly midnight. teachers are particularly vulnerable to carol she, a decades old law, essentially prevents them from being paid for overtime. his widow, a former teacher, herself, says, attitudes to karachi need to change looking at or for about a year before he passed away. he would often say how tired he was and how bad headache he had at that from when he moved to the new school in april until he died 2 months later, he kept saying he was exhausted. he said he wanted to leave the school. oh boy, who in the army, thank god. data from overwork kills japan's overstretched workers with heart attacks, strokes from mental stress, malnourishment,

and some workers even take their own lives. a survey by the o e. c. d found japanese middle school teachers work 56 hours a week compared to an average 38 hours in most developed countries. that doesn't account for the massive overtime hours spent cleaning. supervising school commutes to after school clubs and other tasks up, all know what the lucky got to with it. i have things to do outside school to including family responsibilities in all while you so i sometimes get snowed under garden and feel pressured time wise for you. but what of it? but even when i am under pressure that i don't reduce my workload at school, the thought i enjoy the time i spend playing with the kids. okay. and i just cannot stop it and all by yahoo to come out on an investigation by a union affiliated think tank showed school teachers work in average 123 hours of overtime each month pushing their weekly workload well beyond the dangerous 80 hour

threshold, which labor experts call the cutter, rosie, line. teaching is often seen as a sacred job devoted to children. but there are growing calls in japan for teachers to stop pushing beyond their limits. and joining me now for more context from tokyo is hiroshi. oh no, he's a professor of human resources management. have the he talks about university in the capital of japan. his research includes japan's work culture professor on a welcome. overwork in japan has been widely reported on, but i'd just like to narrow down to teachers fast. why are they in particular, expected to work long hours and weekends? well, teachers that the professional teachers, it's very typical of the japanese, more culture and in a sense that job functions are very ambiguous. they have many responsibilities

outside their main work which is teaching and also, i mean there's like like a lot of paperwork and administration involved in a japanese school system. ah. the other reason i would say there's times formation has been very, very slow to take off in japan. so no teachers are having to deal with a lot of paperwork, a lot of administration outside of their schoolwork. and also like if you're talking about media responsibility, stay are also expected to like for example, run clubs and sports activities. right? oh, they might have to coach athletics. they might have to read a book club or beating cotton. and a lot of these actually take place on weekends. i takes a lot of time away from their therapies her time. but then in all of this,

surely people must understand by and by people. i mean, parents or administrators must understand that this is human beings that we are talking about. and we are asking these human beings to be involved and in a sense, over committed and that this must come at significant health costs, which in turn can be beneficial for children. that it's very, you know, reasonable understanding and, but i guess the professional teacher has always been kind of as many admirable profession here that teachers are expected to be liked, nor secondary parents almost. oh that's no, they know the parents come to to be my own them very much and so that the parents would have a piece of mind that the kids are doing well in school. and so i think the teachers have a sense of responsibility that they, you know,

they need to really look after being up there took the kids and they, you know, as, as also also often the truancy into is that they can't say no, you know, it's, it's a culture where it's very difficult to say no response and police once once they're asked though i think overall there's like compared to like european cultures, the distinction between, you know, work and non work is very, very blurred. and as you point out, i think that we need, we need to respect the boundaries of the people's teachers, separation between working number us and to describe the difference between european and japanese culture in many ways. and i'm just trying to understand where this culture comes from. essentially, the overall question of why is working long oz, the norm in japan? well, i worked in sweden for 8 years in my life. and what i

learned from that experience is, you know, swedes or perhaps europeans in general have a very healthy respect or separation when he broke and meter. so i think you're peons prioritize leisure. and then they kind of work backwards and see how much they have to work, right? japan is almost the opposite, where work if very defining of one's identity. so what 12 or 4, or you know where one is employees is a big part of that person's identity. so work is a very, very high priority, and then whatever's left after work is allocated to her. right? so i think that is a very, very big difference. you might see some statistics not just about working hours, but also like are people taking holidays in japan is very, very low. i mean,

we have many, many holidays national holidays company, designated holidays, but the, the uptake of holidays in japan still remains very low. and a lot of that is leading to this phenomenon of death from overwork or car. oh, she, as has been known about since at least 973, that's when the time came into being. i mean that's a pretty long time. so why has it been so hard for employers to address this and change things? but i should ah, clarify that you know the cut. oh, she is a work that was invented my japan and stink will cut off the line, which is designated us more than 80 hours of work in a months. and which means that if you're working over 80 hours overtime in a month, you're at the risk of karate, right?

so there's a stickler currency line. and by that definition, if you look at the, you see the statistics, a lot of companies, i mean, a lot of countries, you know, there are actually a lot of people that are at risk in other countries by this definition. so it's not necessarily unique to japan and what is unique to japan is that's japanese government and best to my knowledge is the omi country, which collect data of course. right. oh, and that's kind of my hand. it's unfortunate distinction that japan is a country where people die from overwork. well, having said that, they're carlos. you statistics basically show that if you're right, i mean the world has been long for a long time. and especially in the 2 thousands, it started to go up again and and it's on

a recline in more recent years. one of the reasons it's come to get some attention or unwanted attention. is that colonel, she is starting to, there was some incidents of the cuddle she among big company, big companies listed on the total stock exchange. and so it was no longer like a problem that was left to be like the small, medium size companies or companies on the fringe. there was actually taking over into the big companies and miss scott, the attention of the ministries quite subtle. the response to that has been quite strong and the ministry of health and labor and welfare are very concerned about a courtesy problem. and they have started the list of what black companies,

right black companies are a companies that have extremely poor working conditions. long working hours, being one of them. and so there has been a big movement towards taking on this problem of kind of working hours. do you think briefly, are you optimistic the japan can change it? work culture and cub debts work? well, and it is going in the right direction. i said the government is taking serious action about taking on this problem. it is are considered to be a health issue. and i think that, you know, like there's a more of a higher awareness of mental health issues in this country. as a result of it as like, if you need help, please reach out. and so,

ah, the culture, at least a courtesy part i think, should be corrected. the long working our records might be main. right, well, we'll leave it there for the timing but, but interesting talking to you and thanks so much for that context professor hiroshi. oh no, oh no, thank you so much for joining us. i and that's it for today. does it cost more now website you buy kept morrow with to be your own health advocate. by turning into your own expert, we are your coach without any fiction. and lots of facts

be active in a clever way with on d w. a thought, see what grade he will be with people with with, i've seen beardsley in berlin. here's a look at our top stories. the european union finally finds consensus on an artificial cap for gas prices. brussels help the move as a show of solidarity. critics say it could do more harm than good twitter users

say they want owner ellen musk out as he. oh, we'll look at what exactly that could mean for the embattled social media network. also on our show will look at the promise of module building advocates say it promises faster construction and more affordable prices. welcome to the shop. after months of back and forth, you members have it agrees on the design of an artificial price ceiling for natural gas purchases, at least for those purchases on europe's primary exchange, where prices have skyrocketed in recent months. brussels healthy agreement as another sign of solidarity. experts wonder if it'll even work e u members from eastern and southern europe. gotch, what they wanted. a lower level for the gas price kept to kick in at $180.00 euros per megawatt hour. that's more than $100.00 euro's lower than the european commission initially.