Photo/Illutration A government poster warns against using abusive language and behavior to company employees. (From the labor ministry website)

The labor ministry plans to revise a law to require companies to protect employees from customers who make unreasonable demands and often resort to abusive comments and threats, sources said.

Such behavior against workers has become a serious social problem and is known in Japanese as “customer harassment.”

Under the revision of the law on comprehensively advancing labor measures, employers will likely be obligated to prepare manuals on how workers should deal with such customers and provide consultation services for the employees, the sources said.

The government plans to include an outline of the measures in the Basic Policy on Economic and Fiscal Management and Reform to be compiled as early as June, the sources said.

In a survey conducted this year by UA Zensen, a labor union for workers mainly in the service and retail industries, 47 percent of about 33,000 respondents said they experienced customer harassment during the past two years.

Many respondents said customers verbally abused them, intimidated them or repeatedly made the same complaints.

Some workers said the customers defamed them on the internet. Customers even demanded that the workers kneel on the ground and bow in apology, according to the survey.

In 2022, the labor ministry released a manual for companies on how to deal with abusive customers. The manual tried to draw a line between legitimate and unreasonable demands from customers.

It said customers’ demands are unreasonable if the means and manners for achieving them are inappropriate under social conventions, and if they harm workers’ job environment.

The Labor Policy Council, which comprises labor and management representatives, and other experts will carefully discuss the types of language and behavior covered by the revised law, the sources said.

A revision to the law in 2019 required companies to prevent harassment by supervisors in workplaces. The law obliges companies to establish systems for providing consultations to employees and addressing power harassment problems, although companies that fail to fulfill the requirements are not subject to penalties.

The labor ministry plans to add similar measures in the law to prevent customer harassment.

East Japan Railway Co. in April announced its policy on customer harassment, saying employees will stop responding to customers if their language and behavior are problematic.

In serious cases, the company said it will consult with police and lawyers.

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