Capcom allegedly made employees work onsite during the peak of the pandemic after last year's ransomware attack spooked the company.
In an article for Business Journal (translated by Kotaku), one whistleblower details how Capcom "forced employees" to work onsite back in January despite Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga declaring a state of emergency in multiple prefectures, including Osaka where Capcom is based. This is apparently a reaction to the ransomware attack Capcom suffered in November last year.
Capcom had vital information held at ransom and then released, revealing the personal information of thousands of current and former employees as well as the names, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses of up to 350,000 customers and associates. This has allegedly led to Capcom being uncertain of the safety of its external network, and it was decided that employees would not be able to work from home.
Capcom has recently responded to Kotaku's article and claimed that the company did everything it could to provide a safe working environment. Work hours had allegedly been staggered to reduce the number of employees in the building at once and employees had regular temperature checks before they entered. Masks and social distancing rules were also enforced, and employees could only communicate via telecommunication.
But even though Capcom implemented these rules, Business Journal reports that there are bigger issues surrounding the inner workings of the company. Flexible hours are allegedly dependent on your position within the company, and Capcom reportedly won't even allow workers to form a union. Capcom has mentioned these rumors in its reply, claiming that it follows Japanese labor laws and has always allowed workers to form a union, although there isn't one currently in place at the moment.
In related news, Capcom is also currently having to deal with phishing attempts as a number of fans have apparently been receiving fake invitations for Early Access to Resident Evil Village. If you do receive one of these emails from a sender address displayed as "no-reply(at)capcom(dot)com" regarding Early Access, it's best just to delete it as interacting with it can potentially leak your personal information.