Japanese excessive courtroom rejects Canadian man’s paternity harassment claims

A Japanese Excessive Court docket on Thursday rejected an attraction by a former brokerage supervisor alleging on-the-job harassment and illegal dismissal after he took parental depart whereas working at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley.

The case of Glen Wooden, a Canadian who has lived in Japan for greater than three many years, has come to represent issues over “paternity harassment,” or “pata hara.” Wooden’s is a uncommon case, for Japan, of a father searching for to take parental depart. Maternity harassment is extra frequent.

Wooden started his battle in 2017, alleging he was harassed and compelled from his job after taking parental depart when his son was born in 2015.

The corporate rejected Wooden’s request for parental depart. His son was born prematurely and he rushed to see him although the corporate instructed him to simply maintain working, in keeping with the lawsuit.

When Wooden returned to work in 2016, he was stripped of a few of his obligations and excluded from enterprise conferences, in keeping with courtroom testimony. The corporate dismissed him in 2018.

In a 21-page ruling, the Tokyo Excessive Court docket rejected the harassment claims. It defended the corporate’s acts as “inevitable.”

Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley stated Thursday’s ruling confirmed the corporate’s view had been accepted.

Wooden stated he would take his case to the Supreme Court docket, even when which means the authorized battle may proceed till his son, now 6, is in school.

“Harassment isn’t an appropriate type of administration,” he stated at a information convention on the well being and labor ministry.

Wooden now heads his personal firm, which offers transport administration, company governance, environmental options and different providers.

Japan’s inhabitants is shrinking and its beginning fee is among the many lowest on the planet. Regardless of the result of Wooden’s case to date, the federal government has made parental depart a coverage precedence, permitting absences of as much as 12 months. However precise observe hasn’t lived as much as the legislation.

The Tokyo District Court docket dominated in opposition to Wooden in 2020, saying it didn’t discover “cheap grounds” for believing there was harassment. It additionally criticized Wooden for taking his case public as an alternative of quietly resolving the dispute with the corporate, which has made some adjustments to its parental depart insurance policies since Wooden’s dismissal.

Yoshitatsu Imaizumi, one in all Wooden’s attorneys, stated the case nonetheless could possibly be contested on numerous grounds together with Woods’ dismissal for having complained about harassment. That will doubtlessly violate the correct of employees to carry up harassment, he stated.

Wooden, who has appeared in courtroom and information conferences together with his son, stated he was not giving up his battle to make sure males can take parental depart with out worry of retaliation.

“Standing up for parental rights is definitely a present that I’ve been given. And I’m pleased to try this, not just for Japan however for the world,” he stated.

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