Japan names and shames to tackle killer karoshi at work

TOKYO - The Japanese government for the first time released a nationwide list of over 300 companies that have violated labor laws, hoping this name-and-shame tactic would help eliminate abuses and prevent karoshi, or death by overwork.

In the list published this week on the labor ministry's website, major companies such as advertising agency Dentsu and electronics maker Panasonic are named for illegal overtime, and a local unit of Japan Post, a subsidiary of Japan Post Holdings, is mentioned for failing to report a work-related injury.

Abuses such as illegal overwork have become so common in Japan in the past decade that such companies have been dubbed "black" companies in the media. Public outrage over long working hours and the suicide of a young worker at Dentsu in 2015, later ruled by the government as karoshi, have pushed Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to make labor reform a key policy plank.