The Constitutions of Japan guaranteed the “right to life”. Article 25 of the Japanese Constitution explicitly describes the fundamental principle that “all citizens have the right to a minimum standard of healthy and cultivated living.” Article 27 expresses rights and obligations at work and standards for working conditions. In the same article, the right to work imposes two obligations on the government: to promote opportunities for workers to exercise their skills and abilities and to provide livelihoods to workers who have no opportunity to work.41 Article 28 provides three fundamental rights of Work. workers: the right of workers to organize, bargain collectively and strike. It also provides that legal provisions regulate standards relating to wages, working hours, breaks and other working conditions. Japanese labor law includes a number of laws to regulate employment practices. To enforce labor law, the government has some enforcement mechanisms, such as the judicial system, administrative agencies, the Labor Bureau, and the Labor Relations Commission. Various labor-related laws protect workers' rights in Japan. Labor legislation includes general labor laws and special labor laws. There are many other employment laws in these categories. These labor laws can be grouped as follows: those laws that cover workers' rights in relation to trade unions; worker protection laws, which concern the employment of individual workers and the protection of workers before and after the application of employment policy; and laws concerning employment, which regulate the external market.42 (see also Summary of labor law presented in Figure 2.2 below). In order to regulate workplace safety to protect workers' rights, laws...... middle of paper ... ... empowered to prevent and resolve labor disputes through mediation, conciliation or arbitration. Furthermore, two laws regulate irregular work: the WorkerDispatching Business Law and the Part-Time Worker Law. Since the number of non-regular employees has increased in recent years, these acts constitute the "guide maps" to protect their rights at company level. To ensure work free from exploitation and risk and to maintain standards, there are laws, such as the Minimum Wage Act, the Occupational Safety and Health Act, the Labor Standards Act and the Equal Employment Opportunity Act. The figure above shows the inter-linkages and characteristics of laws regulating industrial relations practices in Japanese companies. With continuous changes in the socio-economic situation of the country, the government makes periodic changes in laws and regulations.