By Yuri Kageyama, Business Writer
TOKYO (AP) --The president of top Japanese advertising company Dentsu Inc. said Wednesday he will resign to take responsibility for the suicide of a worker who had clocked massive overtime in her first months on the job.
President Tadashi Ishii said at a Tokyo news conference he will tender his resignation at a board meeting in January although he will stay through March as a courtesy to shareholders.
Earlier Wednesday, government authorities filed papers demanding prosecutorial charges against the unidentified Dentsu employee suspected of driving Matsuri Takahashi to suicide from overwork.
Japanese society values conformity and tends to revere workaholic lifestyles. Death linked to exhaustion is so common it's expressed as a special term, "karoshi," which includes suicides from overwork. About 2,000 people a year kill themselves due to work-related stress, the government says.
Takahashi, 24, had just started working at Dentsu in April 2015. Her workload surged in October and she often returned home at five in the morning after working all day and night. Takahashi was clocking 100 hours of overtime a month before she jumped from her company dorm balcony in December 2015.
She left a farewell email begging her mother to not blame herself. "You're the best mom in the world," Takahashi had written. "But why do things have to be so hard?"
The government in September ruled that overwork caused her death. Tokyo-based Dentsu, which was raided last month by labor regulators, has repeatedly promised to curtail overtime, suspected of being widespread at the company. It started turning off headquarters lights at 10 p.m. so workers would go home.
But Ishii acknowledged the problem has not been fixed. The company said Wednesday that more than 100 workers were still doing more than 80 hours of overtime a month.
"This is something that should never have been allowed to happen," Ishii told reporters of Takahashi's suicide.
The company acknowledged Takahashi's treatment was like harassment because her records showed monthly overtime within company regulations of 70 hours, with numbers like 69.9 hours, when she had actually been working far more hours.
The first person to be officially ruled a suicide from overwork was also a Dentsu employee. Ichiro Oshima, 24, didn't get a single day off for 17 months and had averaged less than two hours of sleep a night. Still, Dentsu had argued in the 1997 court case that personal troubles were behind his 1991 suicide.
Eleanor Adds Director Candice Vernon To Its Roster For Spots and Branded Content
Director Candice Vernon has joined production house Eleanor for U.S. representation spanning commercials and branded content. She has already wrapped several jobs at Eleanor, which waited to announce her until they had a body of work together.
Via Eleanor, Vernon made history as the first Black director on a Febreze commercial. The “Small Spaces” campaign marks a major departure from Febreze’s typical blue-and-white world. The home of the “Revolving Door” commercial is a beautiful array of bold sunset hues, African prints, and African art.
Vernon said, “I asked myself, what feels right to me? What feels new? I wanted to bring an essence of not just Black Americans but the full diaspora. I wanted to make a statement that we’re not a monolith.”
Following the success of the “Small Spaces” campaign, Febreze brought Vernon back for a comedy-infused trifecta exploring the hilarious situations that call for an air freshening hero.
Febreze Brand VP Angelica Matthews said, “About two years ago, we realized the consumers that were the most loyal to Febreze were the African American consumers. And the more we learned, the more we realized the richness that we were really missing. So we said we have to go beyond just Black casting, we need to get Black directors that truly understand the culture that truly understand how to bring authentic performances out on screen. We really looked around the industry and noticed there’s actually a shortage of African American directors who have experience doing commercials. When we all saw Candice’s reel, we could all tell the passion for the craft, passion for really trying to help us from where we are to where we’re trying to go.”
Vernon brings a unique lens to... Read More