PUBLISHED JULY 20266 MIN READLSA ARTS. 36 · 89–90 · 106
TWO GATES · 二つの法的機能BOTH MUST BE PRESENT — NEITHER SUBSTITUTES FOR THE OTHER
PUBLIC LAW · STATUTORY GATE
Article 36 Agreement36協定
Permits overtime and work on days off within agreed limits. Concluded and filed per workplace, with a one-year applicable period.
+
PRIVATE LAW · AUTHORITY TO REQUIRE
Rules of Employment / Labor Contract就業規則・労働契約
Creates the contractual duty to perform the work. No expiry — stands until amended.
RESULTOvertime may lawfully be required. Missing either gate: an agreement with no contractual basis creates no duty; a contractual duty with no valid agreement cannot lawfully be exercised.
An Article 36 agreement opens the statutory gate for overtime. A separate private-law basis — normally the Rules of Employment or an Individual Labor Contract — gives the employer authority to require the worker to perform it.
One does not substitute for the other. A valid Article 36 agreement without a private-law basis creates no duty to work overtime; a contractual duty without a valid Article 36 agreement cannot lawfully be exercised.
1
What each instrument is
DIFFERENT LEGAL FUNCTIONS
36協定 · ARTICLE 36 AGREEMENT · LSA ART. 36
The statutory gate — permits overtime work within agreed limits.
就業規則 · RULES OF EMPLOYMENT · LSA ART. 89–90, 106
The rulebook — defines the standing terms.
2
How they differ
UNIT · TRIGGER · WORKER-SIDE ROLE · VALIDITY
Legal unitArt. 36: workplace only — concluded and filed per workplace. A 12-site company can hold 12 different live ceilings at once. Rules of Employment: workplace, but may be subdivided by worker category.
Headcount triggerArt. 36: no threshold — required, as a general rule, whenever statutory overtime or work on days off is to be performed. Rules of Employment: 10 or more workers continuously employed at that workplace.
Worker-side roleArt. 36: agreement is required — the majority union, or if none a majority representative, is a party. Rules of Employment: opinion must be heard; approval is not required under Art. 90.
ValidityArt. 36: time-limited — the statutory applicable period for the annual limits is one year. Rules of Employment: no expiry; stands until amended.
What it does not doArt. 36: does not by itself create a contractual duty to work overtime. Rules of Employment: do not by themselves authorize statutory overtime.
3
The special clause
特別条項 — ORDINARY LIMITS MAY BE EXCEEDED, SUBJECT TO STATUTORY CAPS
The ordinary limit is generally 45 h/month and 360 h/year (42 h and 320 h under a one-year variable working hours system). A special clause can permit these to be exceeded for temporary, special circumstances — but the caps below apply at the same time, not as alternatives.
720 h
per year, overtime excluding work on days off
<100 h
in any single month, including work on days off
≤80 h
average over any 2–6 consecutive months
6 ×
months per year may exceed the ordinary monthly limit
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOUR POLICY
The trap: centralized filing is not group-level binding. 本社一括届出
Both instruments may be filed centrally by head office, and the requirements have been progressively relaxed. This is an administrative convenience only. Each agreement is still concluded at its own workplace, with that workplace’s own representative. The paperwork looks group-level; the legal binding is not — a centrally-filed set of agreements is still n agreements, not one.
WHO WRITES THESE
Wakana Chiba, Tokutei Sharoushi
Licensed Labor and Social Security Attorney in Japan
Wakana Chiba is a Tokutei Sharoushi — a nationally qualified and registered Labor and Social Security Attorney in Japan. She advises employers on Japanese employment law, workplace rules, working time, employment documentation, and labor and social insurance procedures, translating complex statutory requirements into policies and operations that work in practice.
Legal analysis and review of Japanese primary sources are performed by Wakana Chiba. English terminology is checked against the Japanese Law Translation Database and official MHLW materials. While AI may be used to draft initial texts, all published conclusions have been reviewed by the author.
TSUKURU-HR.COM / GLOBAL · COOKIE POLICYLSA = LABOR STANDARDS ACT 労働基準法 · STATUTORY POSITION AS OF JULY 2026 · GENERAL INFORMATION, NOT LEGAL ADVICE
