In a Tokyo District Court ruling expected to reverberate around the nation's fast food industry, McDonald's Japan was Monday ordered to pay overtime wages to a restaurant manager.

Presiding Judge Iwao Saito ignored the fast food giant's claim that store managers were exempt from overtime payments because they are in managerial positions and ordered it to pay about 7.55 million yen to a man who headed one of its Saitama Prefecture outlets.

Of the food retailer's roughly 4,700 full time employees nationwide, some 1,700 are store managers, so Monday's ruling is expected to have far-reaching consequences.

"From their administrative authority and remuneration, it's not possible to say that store managers are part of corporate management," Saito said as he handed down the ruling.

McDonald's is poised to appeal.

"We're disappointed that our arguments were not accepted," a spokesman for the company said. "We believe in the arguments we made and are thinking about an appeal."

McDonald's Japan was sued by Hiroshi Takano, a 46-year-old restaurant manager of the chain's 125 Kumagaya outlet in Kumagaya, Saitama Prefecture. When he was made the manager of another restaurant in 1999, McDonald's stopped paying Takano overtime, saying that he was part of corporate management and no longer was entitled to be paid for working outside of regular hours. Takano had demanded overtime payment for the period from December 2003 to November 2005, as well as compensation, and had sought about 13.5 million yen from the chain.

Under the Labor Standards Law, overtime must be paid at penalty rates, but those in corporate management are deemed to be exempt from this. The court battle was fought over whether restaurant managers were actually regarded as part of the chain's corporate management.

The court dismissed the idea of restaurant managers being part of McDonald's upper echelon.

"Management means those with an integral role in the corporation who must work beyond regular hours and have considerable authority and their wages reflect this," the court ruled. The court said that restaurant managers only employ part-time staff and had authority that extended only into their own outlet, not making them integral to corporate management. The court added that restaurant managers also had to look after quality, sales and dealing with customers, depriving them of a free hand in their working hours. The court pointed out that some restaurant managers earned wages that were less than the people working for them.

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written by ワ－ワー , June 04, 2008

I really love Mc donald's

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