[Excerpt translation from Japanese to English provided by Business & Human Rights Resource Centre.]

"'Coerced resignation is invalid'" /  McAfee female employee / Files labour lawsuit in Tokyo District Court", 19 May 2020

On May 13, [2020], Ms. A, who worked as a manager at the foreign-affiliated firm McAfee, filed a lawsuit... against her former employer in the Tokyo District Court. The suit alleges that she was coerced to sign a document accepting her resignation...

Last September, Ms. A was in a private meeting...when two supervisors suddenly arrived. For nearly three hours,...[t]hey urged her to resign, telling her that her poor performance did not merit her salary and that staying at her job “wouldn't make anyone happy”. She repeatedly asked them to wait for her response until the next day, but they told her that “if she didn't resign, she would be fired and not receive her resignation package (including a severance payment)”. Feeling afraid because the conversation was taking place in a locked room, she ultimately signed off on her resignation.

...Ms. A’s lawyer...said, “The number of inquiries about coerced resignations have been increasing since last year. A common pattern in these cases are that employees are placed in situations where a group of individuals talk to them over a period of several hours and won't let them leave until an answer is given. During these conversations, the employer won't allow them to leave their seat or consult externally before providing a response.”

 To prevent scandals, foreign-affiliated companies conduct background checks, examining an applicant’s job history and legal records. Ms. A said, “Many companies conduct background checks that go back 10 years. Employees are afraid of getting fired because they may have difficulty finding jobs in the future. As a result, they end up resigning...”