Following in Itagaki's footsteps; 'gross labour violations' cited
Yes ma'am, the rumours of other Tecmo employees (aside from Team Ninja head Tomonobu Itagaki) suing the company turned out to be true, although just a little grander than you expected. Two plaintiffs who filed the case (one being Tecmo developer Hiroaki Ozawa) have chosen to represent the entire company, which amounts to 300+ employees. They will be suing for ¥8.3 million ($77,000), though it is not entirely clear whether or not this is per employee or for the entire team, though considering the figures below, I presume it's the former.
With the suit more accusations are revealed: an illegally placed "flexible hours" work scheme (which started in 2004) which meant no paid overtime, creation of false documents, and covering up of accounting documents.
Employees that work as hard as I'm sure at least most of Tecmo does (and has) definitely need the overtime pay (over 100 hours per month was unaccounted for, also presumably per employee); developers in general are known for hard work and some very long hours. However, this is a little odd. Why would they put up with no paid overtime for four years? That just doesn't seem feasible, though perhaps what with the cover ups and all, the employees felt there was nothing they could do, until now.
Now, while in a way it sucks Itagaki had to leave the team, in retrospect, it seems to be a very good thing he did. I'm sure he's beaming at this point, like ya would be. Now just to get Team Ninja back together, headed by Itagaki himself, perhaps? Too crazy? Either way, I think someone needs to head it; a good environment is necessary to counteract the previous one. Knowing how good previous Tecmo/Team Ninja games have been, imagine how good they'd be in a happy workplace. Although Tecmo owns the rights to the Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive series', maybe with this news, they'll be inclined to sell the rights - I wants me some mar Ninja Gaiden!
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And yeah, I definitely think so. Would love to get a reaction from Itagaki on this.
How does it look when you're laid off for complaining about not being paid overtime and the only thing the company says is that you weren't a loyal worker and your fixation with being paid more led to your leave.
Loyalty in the dev house is everything in Japan, if you're being portrayed as greedy or selfish then there's no place for you and there's nothing for the workers to do.
People often try to think simple of the situations and pretend that the party should fight them, but in reality they are in a world of corporations, they're easily crushed.
Itagaki provided them a window through his credibility and fame to actually be the one who struck back and was able to get a case made. Otherwise we'd still never hear of these things.
Couldn't you prove the reason you quit though? I mean assuming the company didn't cover anything up like Tecmo has done. Unless they all do it..
But yeah, very glad for Itagaki then. Who knows, him being the way he's been could've been part of his plan all along.
The industry is able to exploit devs because really, what else are they going to do? If they get blacklisted in the industry then they need to find a new occupation entirely. It was easy for them to keep small numbers or individuals silent but once someone with equally high ground made a stance it all fell apart for them.
Assuming that the workplace here is the same as over there is probably the first mistake that most make. If you're already painted badly then there's less reason to trust your statements since they only come off as a plea to obtain work not as a defense of a situation. There's no presentation of a case when you've already been denied, because honestly most of these devs don't have access to the HR team papers and have no way to request documentation anyway. Bringing in 4 of their friends to vouch for them doesn't fly either. It's an entirely different world once you go into large studios such as that.
In this case it works differently now, there's a publicly available case against the company and so they don't have to worry about a fallout where the company tries to slander them because this is plainly out there on the books.
There's little to do because you're signing into an agreement giving them consent to do it when you start working there, trying to sue after you're released when your project is done doesn't work since they already have a written signed agreement paper.
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