The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry said Monday that it has taken disciplinary action against a former assistant director for the social security counsellor office over a case of power harassment.
The assistant director, who was in the post in 2017, was given a 10% pay cut for one month for harassing a male subordinate. The subordinate developed depression and quit the job. The ministry recognized the incident on March 2 as a work-related accident during public service.
The former assistant director served as a power harassment counselor in the department and was supposed to prevent power harassment and provide consultations, the ministry said.
According to the ministry and the man who was harassed, the former assistant director repeatedly verbally abused and mentally tortured the man, who was transferred to the department in April 2017, saying things like, "Will you kill yourself, if I ask you to do so?" and "Who do you think you are?"
The man took a leave of absence in December 2018 and resigned from the ministry in March last year without being able to return to work.
The ministry has assigned power harassment counselors to each department since 2012, and there are about 60 such counselors currently.
"It's regrettable that we were unable to prevent power harassment, and we'll take all possible measures to prevent recurrence of such an incident," said the ministry.
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