Canadian single dad claims Japanese bosses harassed him for having a child

[Tennis]

http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/...sment-in-japan

When Glen Wood told his Japanese bosses he intended to take paternity leave to look after his newborn son, the Canadian financial analyst said he was treated “like I had committed some sort of crime.”

The 47-year-old single father and former manager of global sales at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities Co. in Tokyo alleges he was harassed to the point of mental and physical collapse after he exercised his right to a leave when his son Alexander was born two years ago.

His lawyers have filed a temporary injunction against the Japanese brokerage and have asked a Tokyo court to order the firm reinstate him to full employee status. The company said it encourages its employees to take parental leave. But Wood said he’s a victim of what is known in Japan as patahara — paternity harassment.

Wood said he was incrementally demoted before he was put on unpaid leave in October after rejecting what he said amounted to a low-level clerical position and a more than 50 per cent pay cut.

“It was like junior high school girls’ type of behaviour — they shut me out,” he said. “They wouldn’t invite me to meetings, they wouldn’t look at me, they wouldn’t talk to me.”

In an email to the Post, MUFJ Morgan Stanley said it has “actively encouraged the taking of childcare leave for some time, and addressed the taking of childcare leave by Mr. Glen in good faith.”

“The continued employment of Mr. Glen Wood was also addressed in good faith,” the company said. It declined further comment because the matter is before the courts.

Despite one of the most liberal paternity leave laws among developed nations — men, like women, are entitled to a year’s leave, generally at about 60 per cent of their salaries — the number of working men who take paternity leave in Japan has never topped three per cent (the government wants to increase that to 13 per cent by 2020).

Experts have attributed the low uptake not just to men clinging to stereotypical gender roles, but the workplace hostility and harassment men fear they’ll face should they take advantage of “family-friendly” policies, according to the authors of an article published in the September issue of the journal Frontiers in Psychology.

A 2014 survey by Japan’s largest organization of labour unions found more than one in 10 men have been refused paternity leave or harassed for even requesting it.

“Apparently, in some companies, ignoring a newborn child and forgoing family obligations is considered a positive step along the career track,” the Japan Times wrote in an editorial.

Wood’s requests for paternity leave were rejected until he took a DNA test proving he was the baby’s father, according to his petition, obtained by Bloomberg.

His own father died in an industrial accident just before his birth. He was raised on his mother’s family’s farm in St. Ann’s, Ont. and attended university in the U.S. on scholarships. He holds an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania and, over his 18-year career as a financial analyst, he has worked at Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs. Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley hired him about six years ago.

According to his lawyers, Wood was harassed solely because he decided to have a child.

“Japanese view employees basically as soldiers,” said Wood, who is fluent in the language. “You’re 100 per cent committed to the company. Men basically don’t go home and, if they try to spend time with family it is a very negative thing.”

But full-time employees are hard to fire because of rigid labour laws and employer contracts, he said. “If they don’t like someone for some reason, they harass them until they quit.”


In August 2015, Wood told his bosses he and his partner were going to have a baby. (He’s now raising the child as a single father.) When he informed them he would need to take a leave, “they were very negative. Their first response was ‘no, there’s nothing, you just can’t do it.’” His son was born in October of that year. Wood was eventually granted leave in December after a DNA test proved paternity. (He and the baby’s mouths were swabbed at the Canadian embassy).

When Wood returned to work three months later, after hiring a full-time nurse to help care for his son, “the first day back my boss called me in and said, ‘you’ve got a child now and basically you can’t do your job.’” Wood, who worked 14- plus hour days managing a global sales team and travelling to overseas offices, said he was reassigned to a menial job working with clients “that weren’t profitable and likely never would be.”

He grew depressed. “I was run down. I was still working very long hours and they were harassing me all the time,” he said. “They wouldn’t tell me about meetings, or they would give me the wrong time for meetings. It was pretty pedantic type of things they were doing just to try to drive me crazy.”

One day, “I actually fell over at work.” He took a medical leave and, when he came back six months later after his doctor and a company doctor approved his return to work, Wood said he was offered “basically a secretarial position” at less than half his annual salary. He rejected the offer and hired a lawyer.

“They stopped my compensation and now I’m getting nothing, but they’re keeping me as an employee of the company because it’s illegal to fire me,” he said.

Wood is not a permanent resident and he needs a salary to keep his visa to stay in Japan, a country facing a rapidly shrinking population. Last year, it recorded fewer than one million new births for the first time in its history, according to Geopolitical Monitor.

“Why aren’t people having babies? I’m one very obvious reason why,” Wood said.

Wow. This is a really bizzare story. They need to understand that there is nothing wrong with taking time off to raise a baby. It's the right thing to do. Kids need their parents.

Also it is really strange that he is raising the baby alone. Where is the mom in all of this? Really messed up. Babies need their moms.

[Swalload]

http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/...sment-in-japan



Wow. This is a really bizzare story. They need to understand that there is nothing wrong with taking time off to raise a baby. It's the right thing to do. Kids need their parents.

Also it is really strange that he is raising the baby alone. Where is the mom in all of this? Really messed up. Babies need their moms.

Men aren't the only ones going crazy and leaving kids behind. Or maybe she's dead, who knows.

[Deleted]

http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/...sment-in-japan



Wow. This is a really bizzare story. They need to understand that there is nothing wrong with taking time off to raise a baby. It's the right thing to do. Kids need their parents.

Also it is really strange that he is raising the baby alone. Where is the mom in all of this? Really messed up. Babies need their moms.

She could be dead

Also children can survive without mothers or two parents

[Daedius]

Who hijacked Tennis' account? This is the first time I've seen him making a thread on a MAN's behalf...

Where is the mom in all of this? Really messed up. Babies need their moms.

Ah there it is...

She could be, ye know... dead?

[Independent voter]

It could be that the request for paid maternity leave was the straw that broke the camel's back, that the guy was a horrible employee at least by Japanese standards. Hard to tell from the article.

[Zelk]

http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/...sment-in-japan



Wow. This is a really bizzare story. They need to understand that there is nothing wrong with taking time off to raise a baby. It's the right thing to do. Kids need their parents.

Also it is really strange that he is raising the baby alone. Where is the mom in all of this? Really messed up. Babies need their moms.

What a strange comment with some very disturbing undertones.

[Deleted]

Who hijacked Tennis' account? This is the first time I've seen him making a thread on a MAN's behalf...

Not really he still shoehorned in single parent shaming

[Lochton]

http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/...sment-in-japan



Wow. This is a really bizzare story. They need to understand that there is nothing wrong with taking time off to raise a baby. It's the right thing to do. Kids need their parents.

Also it is really strange that he is raising the baby alone. Where is the mom in all of this? Really messed up. Babies need their moms.

What is that supposed to mean? A child doesn't NEED both parents, nor does a child NEED a mom if it is past breastfeeding. Even so, could be that the child is unwell and the mother has to work and he was the only one with the ability to be there when needed etc etc etc.

[Sky High]

not unbelievable, considering corporate culture in Japan is a shoe in for feudal era bullshit.

Where is the mom in all of this?

even by your standards Tenn this comment is just bizarre.

[Rukario]

And...that's why the japanese are going extinct.

[Dakhath]

Given that this is the same country that thinks its admirable if you fall asleep at work since they believe its because you're working so hard, this doesn't surprise me at all. The Japanese population is plummeting and they're going to have serious issues in a generation or so, this is just one of the reasons why.

[3DTyrant]

http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/...sment-in-japan



Wow. This is a really bizzare story. They need to understand that there is nothing wrong with taking time off to raise a baby. It's the right thing to do. Kids need their parents.

Also it is really strange that he is raising the baby alone. Where is the mom in all of this? Really messed up. Babies need their moms.

That's the biggest load of horse shit I've read all fucking day. There could be many reasons why the mum isn't around. Also kids don't need their mum.

[Siraeyou]

She could be dead

Also children can survive without mothers or two parents

She most likely bailed on the relationship. If she had passed away most articles like these would (without a second thought) add in the extra information that he was a widowed father in order to gain more sympathy.

At the end of the day this is a case of Eastern Morals vs Western Morals, along with how each perceives a man in the workplace and homestead.

[StayTuned]

Ohhhhh my god. What could have been a serious thread about Japanese culture and their work ethics will now turn into a tennis shit fest because he just couldn't resist on making insane comments about the mother.....

In any case, this doesn't surprise me at all. Japan is very oldschool on regards to these things. Their greatest honour is to die at work from exhaustion.....

[Tennis]

What is that supposed to mean? A child doesn't NEED both parents, nor does a child NEED a mom if it is past breastfeeding. Even so, could be that the child is unwell and the mother has to work and he was the only one with the ability to be there when needed etc etc etc.

Um dude it is simple biology. It takes a man and woman to have a child for a reason. Both parents have their role to play. Have you not seen the numerous studies and high quality research on the importance of a mother to a newborn child?

[Deleted]

Um dude it is simple biology. It takes a man and woman to have a child for a reason. Both parents have their role to play. Have you not seen the numerous studies and high quality research on the importance of a mother to a newborn child?

You don't understand much do you? How old are you again? It's also lovely of you to hijack a serious issue just to peddle your insane out-of-touch beliefs

[Tennis]

You don't understand much do you? How old are you again? It's also lovely of you to hijack a serious issue just to peddle your insane out-of-touch beliefs

Um no? It's linked the the article and the issue at hand. If the mom was in the picture then Mr. Wood would not have needed to take as much time off. It's that simple.
He could be the breadwinner and she would take care of the beautiful baby.

[Allerius]

Japan really needs to learn that there are steep diminishing returns to excessive working hours due to fatigue and burnout.

[Tennis]

Ohhhhh my god. What could have been a serious thread about Japanese culture and their work ethics will now turn into a tennis shit fest because he just couldn't resist on making insane comments about the mother.....

In any case, this doesn't surprise me at all. Japan is very oldschool on regards to these things. Their greatest honour is to die at work from exhaustion.....

We can discuss both buddy. We aren't simple creatures who can only focus on one thing.

[zlygork]

Evidence or GTFO, I think we have enough witch hunting with the hollywood rapist revelations.

Edit, reading a bit of your wall of text, I see this actually happens at Japan. The terrible working conditions do indeed need changing, but this story is not exactly news to most of us, where have you been the last few decades?

- - - Updated - - -

Um dude it is simple biology. It takes a man and woman to have a child for a reason. Both parents have their role to play. Have you not seen the numerous studies and high quality research on the importance of a mother to a newborn child?

"high quality research" =/= research that discounts an assortment of variables and jump to conclusions not directly related to its results.

Most research proposing that a MOTHER or FATHER is needed (as opposed to two dedicated parents regardless of gender) seems to all be highly outdated by research standards