Abstract
The exceptionally high overtime work of public school teachers has emerged as one of Japan’s most pressing social issues because of the rapid decline of novice teacher candidates and
the gross teacher shortage in many public schools. Approaching the issue, many scholars have
attributed this situation to the Special Act for Public School Teacher Compensation, which exempts public school teachers from the general rules of the Labor Standard Act. While the Labor
Standard Act restricts the maximum working hours of all employees to eight hours per day and
forty hours per week and requires, if employers extend the working hours of their employees
over the restriction, to pay 125-150% of their salary for the overtime working hours, the Special
Act mandates that employers pay a special salary amounting to 4% of the monthly salary for
teachers in lieu of the overtime salary requirement. Recognizing the insufficient compensation
for the overtime work of public school teachers, the Special Taskforce of the Liberal Democratic
Party proposed to raise the amount of the special salary from 4% to 10% and establish new allowances for teachers who are in charge of specific policy areas. Although many scholars and
educators criticize the insufficiency of the proposed agenda for compensating the huge amount
of overtime work, this paper analyzes the structural deficiency of the education policymaking
process which excludes teachers and their unions. To address this problem, the author analyzes
the U.S. model of the teacher law system in which the salary, hours, and other employment
conditions of public teachers are determined by a collective bargaining agreement between the
board of school district and teacher union in each local area. The author emphasizes that the
voice and participation of teachers in their labor decision-making process are necessary not
only to improve their salary and working conditions but to develop specialized working rules
based on their professionalism.
Keywords：Special Act for Public School Teacher Compensation, Teacher Unions, Labor
Standard Act, Fundamental Labor Rights, Council of Labor Policy
https://ror.org/035t8zc32 
