The Law Doesn’t Matter?
Well, you finally made it to Japan. Ready to take on that new job, full of enthusiasm and hope in a new and certainly different country. The pay is not bad either, got those student loans to pay back, maybe even save enough for a down payment on a residence back in the home country, but why worry about that now? The new contract has been signed, work has started, first paycheck due pretty soon. No major worries, a few minor glitches here and there, but nothing a little persistence can’t take care of right?. Even beginning to get some of the local lingo down, at least enough to make wishes, hopes, and dreams known to that certain someone. Yeah! Things are looking pretty good.
Well they were for thousands of people just like you who have joined the labor force in Japan, but unfortunately found the workaday world here not exactly as they expected it to be. No worse than that, for many thousands of Japanese and non Japanese employees alike, things are downright miserable.
While it is not possible to detail each individual’s Japan experience, and everyone’s is as different and varied as the number of people on earth, this is becoming more and more a common scenario here:
After working the job for the first month, your first pay installment is deposited into your bank account, but it is not quite as much as you expected, in fact it is a lot less than you thought you would get. Why? What happened!? After a couple checks of things you find that there were some deductions made that were, well surprising to say the least. Taxes, health care, insurance, rent, well ,those were maybe shocks, but what can you say, we all have to pay those things, right? But what is this ‘penalty for being late’ or ‘deduction for bad evaluation’ or an arbitrary ‘deduction for work attitude’ or even worse, just non payment for overtime worked, paid holidays, days off for being sick, and so on. ‘This is unfair!’ you say? You are angry, and you are right. The labor laws of Japan would tend to agree with you. ‘So what is this? Don’t employers obey the law in this country?’ The answer is, well, they sometimes do when it suits them and don’t just as often, and the cases of them not obeying labor laws and even basic human rights laws, along with the current buzzword; Power Harassment, is growing daily here. Especially in those enterprises that employ foreigners, the newly hired, contract workers, temporary workers, and day laborers. Once you have signed the contract and started working, they have you.
If you find yourself in such a situation what can you do? Just get your employer to obey the law! Well, it should be that simple, but it in fact is far more difficult to get an employer to uphold the basic laws of this land as many are finding out daily.
Suppose you have done what you could, begged, cried, pleaded, even threatened you boss, and to no avail, or worse, found yourself branded as a troublemaker or even fired, just for asking that promises made be kept laws obeyed, and contracts mutually signed and agreed upon, upheld. What are your options then?
Well thankfully there are several.
You may have noticed their signs along the roads. This government bureau has offices covering the entire country. No matter where you live, you will have one of these that can be gone to in your area for assistance. It is their job to enforce the non-criminal labor related laws of Japan. You can go to them and file a complaint against your employer. Fine, you might say, I will just do that all should be taken care of right? Wrong. They may be sympathetic to your grievance, if they feel your case has merit, may decide to do something or may not. Persistence seems to pay off, but it most likely depends on the whim of the government staff worker you talk to. If you present them with enough evidence they can easily verify and take action on (remember they are a government office and not inclined to work very hard) and you make things as easy as possible for them, they MAY contact your employer on your behalf and ASK that the employer comply with labor laws. The employer then has the choice to comply or refuse to. Most of the time the employer just ignores the request from the labor office because there is no penalty for not complying with the law. ‘What?’ you may be asking yourself, ‘There is no penalty for not obeying the labor laws in Japan?’ The answer, in a nutshell is, no there isn’t, at least not at this stage.
If the employer refuses to comply with a request from the labor office, your next step, and one the labor office will be sure to make perfectly clear to you is:
For most people, and especially non Japanese the court system here can seem pretty intimidating and overwhelming for good reason, but it is not really if you know what to expect. Hiring a lawyer to guide you through the minefield is the route recommended by most, but lawyers are expensive, 500,000 yen just to engage their services IF they decide they will take on your case. There are not enough of them,and many won’t take on small claims cases because it is sometimes tedious, and not worth their time. They have bigger more profitable fish to fry than your employer. If you do however decide to go this route here are some pointers.
If you do decide to go after them through the court there are some things working in your favor in Japan. The court system was supposedly revamped several years ago to allow more people access to the court without the need to hire a lawyer. It is possible to represent yourself. Since most correspondence is done in writing with the court, it is not necessary to engage a lawyer for all sorts of disputes. If you need help writing or filling out the appropriate court documents, a Legal Scrivener (shihou shoushi) can assist you for a fee much less than a lawyer would charge. You can also write the briefs yourself and have them translated by a legal secretary. If you need translation during court appearances, the court is usually more than willing to allow for this, and will work with you to make sure you understand and can comply with all the procedures.
If a full blown law suit is not necessary, you just want to recover lost wages, or be paid what is owed you according to the law, you are in luck with these two procedures:
Shougaku Soshou. (Small Claims Suit) for amounts under 600,000 yen. Court fee is 1%. 600,000 yen would be 6,000 yen plus couple hundred yen for stamps. It is simpler, takes about a month, costs less, is a one time appearance in court. You can represent yourself. When only money is involved and the case is simple. It can be done up to a maximum of 10 times in a year. Is applied in Kani Saiban (Summary Court).If you get judgement and they still won’t pay, you do a Shikou Testuzuki, (Shougaku Soushou Saiken Shikkou tetsuzuki). This cost another 4,000 yen and you can seize their property for payment. The procedure can be done by a Legal Scrivener (Shihou Shoushi) and you just appear in court. It is conducted in a closed room (not open court) around a table using ordinary (non legal language) Japanese. A legal secretary or translator is allowed to accompany the plaintiff if needed.
Rodo Shimpan (Labor Related Three Strike Suit)
The ministry of justice has to their credit recognized that there are an awful lot of labor/employment related disputes and has created this procedure starting from April 2007. This involves only monetary judgements, a maximum of three times in court and not to extend more than three months. It is similar to the Shougaku Soshou in terms and fees.
There are several around, all catering to various needs and unique situations people find themselves in in Japan. Ideally they are there to work for, and protect the rights of the members of the union. In reality they are all quite different, each having its own special areas of focus or expertise depending on the union officials in charge. If you join one, and support it by you dues and membership for an extended period, they MAY take up your grievance and assist you with the negotiations and legal matters related to your case. Most likely they won’t though, as most only take on cases that are easily won with the least amount of effort on their part. They tend to take a dim view of the person who gets into trouble and comes to them for assistance, that is not what they are there for, according to them. Most seem to be a sort of life insurance policy, only collect-able after death or illness, contracted for during times of good health and prosperity. Don’t count on them coming to your aid after you get into trouble, you will most likely be shown the door.
The Law Does In Fact Matter
Most people find that taking matters into their own hands is the only way to get satisfaction in resolving these kinds of disputes. Japan is unfortunately going through social and economic period in which employers are increasingly taking advantage of employees by giving them the short shrift when it comes to wages and benefits to improve their own bottom line. In this, laws and human rights are being cast aside in the pursuit of profits. Japan has always had a shady history of periods during which the powerful took advantage of the weak for their own benefit. This was supposed to have been corrected by the constitution imposed on Japan after World War II. The laws and court system were established with this purpose in mind and to create a stable democracy. When all is said and done, the law does indeed matter, but only if citizens, and yes even legal guests, understand their rights and exercise them lawfully.
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Great write-up!
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This is an excellent insight into the labor laws of Japan. I had no idea they were so bad… I really hope they improve!
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Nice writing. But the “Bergamalıların eylem günü” photo has to be the photo of people protesting the company that uses cyanide in gold mining in Bergama (İzmir/Turkey) territory, I couldn’t relate this photo with Osaka Nova teachers.
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I was under the impression that picture was of osaka nova teachers as I had seen it in another Nova related news blog and picked it up from there. The URL also has it titled as Osaka Nova teachers protest. Sorry if I mistook it.
Another reader also pointed out to me that my statement that the minstry of labor only deals with civil related issues is mistaken. The ministy of labor only deals with criminal related issues, such as if the employer has stolen wages from the worker. This would have criminal penalties,however my understanding is that it is almost impossible to get a prosecutor to pursue charges in most cases.
So if civil disputes are not handled by labor the employee would have no other choice than either trying to negotiate with the employer over the issues, or court.
Great article! Thanks for writing this up. I think it should be a must-read for anyone heading over to Japan to work.
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What happens a lot is that teachers within a language school will form their own small union, and may at some point decide to call in the national union for support. This is sometimes necessary, but it can be a double-edged sword. The national union tends to overpower the wishes of many local teachers and impose their own agenda on the local union. As long as they can keep just one teacher in their stable, they can keep going for as long as they like.
If your dilemma is drastic, and you’re really at the end of your rope, if your school is being outrageously illegal, then the national union can be a godsend. But if your dilemma is more mild, is composed more of wants than needs, or is centered around school policies that skirt the laws but do not outright break them, then the national union can become a dangerous albatross.
I’ve seen this happen twice close-up. Here’s what happens. There is a lot of discontentment about certain things going wrong in the workplace, but at the core are only a few really ticked-off people. A union is formed. Initially, the larger number of cooler tempers keep the wild ones in check, and negotiations with the management are civil, even if tense and uncomfortable. But most requests are reasonable and offered in good faith, and often times the school will see that compliance is relatively painless, and concessions will be made. A key factor here is what demands are made and what attitude the union takes in asking for them. Ask for reasonable things in a constructive, non-confrontational way (“Here are several things we want which will improve the school and help you as much as they help us”), and success is possible.
What happens then is that most of the teachers will be satisfied and will then lose interest in maintaining union membership. But they leave the union mechanism intact when they leave. They’re the stable ones, and what’s left is the hotheads–who suddenly find that they are a lot less impressive or influential with their now-small numbers. But they have an official union. So they call in the national labor union, which, if it sees a possible platform in the school, agrees to engage.
Suddenly, things change drastically. Remaining members of the union are given pep speeches and told about all the horrible things that are being done to them, and are told of all the things they are entitled to. Some of these things are true (though most have catches in them), some are true but are grossly exaggerated, and some are theoretically possible but pragmatically are no better than pipe dreams. The real exaggeration and even fiction-telling comes in setting up the company as an oppressive criminal.
In dealing with the management, the union immediately goes from being civil to being hostile, sometimes outrageously so. Demands go from being reasonable to being outrageous and exorbitant (under the theory that if you want something, you have to demand much, much more). The school is accused of immoral, unsightly, and often criminal behavior. Threats of all kinds are made, the media is called in. Name-calling abounds. Strikes and demonstrations ensue, often with 90% or more of the protesters brought in from the outside, with only a small core of actual school employees among them. The union may choose to focus on an issue that they want to make progress on, regardless of what is reasonable in relation to that one school.
In short, an atmosphere is created which virtually guarantees that the management will clamp down and not give a single thing that they don’t absolutely have to. And if your school is simply skirting the laws instead of breaking them, then that means they usually won’t have to give up a thing.
Another effect is often seen as retaliatory by the school, but is in fact now made necessary due to union threats. The school goes on the defensive, which means every interaction with any teacher is viewed as a possible union confrontation. The school recognizes that in order to making decisions on how to deal with teachers, they need careful documentation; to the teacher, this means a lot more paperwork, more rules to follow, deadlines set where they were not before, and more observation and micro-managing from the supervisors.
Forget about any more special favors from the school; where before they would have been willing to give you a special leave of absence or an advance on your salary, now they refuse. Not because they are being nasty, but because they now know that any special-need favor will be made into a universal job perk that the union will demand be made available to everyone.
The union will also start to attack the school in more substantive ways. The union will want something they can threaten the school with–in essence, “give in to us or we’ll do this and that to you. We’ll damage your reputation, we’ll try to get your credentials withdrawn, etc. etc. Any weakness or crack will be exploited. And it won’t be just the school–it’ll be non-union teachers. That you were formerly a union member won’t help; this will simply make you into a traitor to them, and if they can embarrass the school by showing up a non-union teacher, or even better a gaijin supervisor, to have something wrong–an incomplete degree, a visa violation, or whatever–they will use that. I’ve seen people get fired, not because of the school, but because of a union attack.
The teachers who had the cooler heads and left the union previously might want to come back and assert control, but they will find that impossible: the union will tell them they’re not welcome unless the union is certain that they are just as hot-headed as the others. The union will now consist of a small core of progressively-more-disgruntled workers, with the large majority of teachers standing helplessly by on the sidelines.
In the end, things will eventually quiet down, and once the last remaining union members leave, the union will dissolve. But what will be left behind is a workplace far less pleasant and amiable than there was before.
So, are unions a bad thing? No. But you have to be careful, because unions are given a very large legal stick; so when you create one, make sure that it is under control. Don’t let the hotheads reign. Don’t let the cooler heads leave the union with the machinery still intact; if the mission is accomplished, disband the union, else the hotheads will abuse it. If it’s not possible to disband, then maintain membership if only to keep the union from doing anything stupid.
And don’t allow for the national union to be called in unless your situation is really desperate.
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Well Blog D, you said everything I was going to say about unions.
Actually it is pretty rare to find someone who has had any first hands experience in working with them from the unions perspective. Thanks for that input.
David: have you had any experience with them? What have you found out about them? I am curious; though I have seen a lot to do with them (two of my workplaces having had union relations), I am always interested in hearing other perspectives, knowing what others have seen or experienced differently.
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I have worked one place that another teacher was trying to organize a union at. He was not successful for several reasons. After asking around it was generally the consensus that after paying dues from the time of joining into eternity, that the union was actually ineffective in doing what it said it did which was improving or at least guaranteing employment for part-time teachers. The school pretty much did whatever it wanted anyway where there was a union structure in place or not.
Also it was the general feeling that the union was highly legalistic about some of its stands with regard to insurance for example, which can be good, except in negotiations with school administrators where some flexibility is required. I guess it depends on who the mediator is but some were of the opinion that the union sometimes created more problems than it solved.
It just seemed that the costs far outweighed the benefits of a union presence.
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Here is an article which appeared in Metropolis magazine and a comment from a former union insider on the content.
http://metropolis.co.jp/tokyo/recent/feature.asp
The following comment on this article can be found here:
http://www.japanaddicted.com/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=4803&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=105
“This piece is nothing but union propaganda and an ADVERTISEMENT in order to get more people to join the union. If you understand how the Tokyo union really functions, you will understand that is exactly what this fluff piece is. When talking specifically about the Nova union, they have not managed to win a single benefit. Further, all significant changes came from OSAKA, not Tokyo. Tokyo just rides on the coat tails of Osaka’s success.
Next, I am going to go out on a self-indulging limb here and say that Carlet and Tench know I am still out there and other people exactly like myself are out there telling teachers that there are other alternatives to dealing with their problems besides joining the union. They are giving desparate teachers the same ‘advice” (ultimatum) they gave me when I had a falling out with them: make your own union. Not all disputes require union action and as a matter of fact, union involvement can (and HAD) hurt employees.
Carlet is LYING about how much he gets paid. His salary was more like 300,000-400,000 yen BEFORE he was made to reduce his hours for kidney dialysis. I know this for a FACT because Tench told me how much the representatives get paid. I remember this because I was interested in becoming a union rep because the pay was good, only I didn’t have the technical Japanese ability to apply.
Here is what I wrote on another forum on this article:
Quite a few redunancies in the article as well as some half-truths.
- Louis Carlet claims that the union won unemployment insurance for
Nova teachers. This is simply not true. Nova teachers already had
access to unemployment insurance without the union’s assistance. The
first teacher to receive unemployment insurance was a non-union
member, Saul. The union followed Saul’s example and decided to push
Nova to make payments for all teachers. What was found out is that
unemployment insurance was part of shakai hoken. The union and Nova
made a deal to only make the unemployment part of the deductions for
teachers, because they knew the teachers didn’t want it. While the
union CANNOT be credited for “winning” unemployment insurance for
teachers, they can be credited with pushing Nova to make the
deductions for all teachers in order to make it easier to file timely
claims.
- While rattling off the rights that teachers do not have as contract
workers, he fails to mention that there is job security provided by
labor standards law for employees who have signed temporary contracts
repeatedly. He fails to mention the illegality on the part of the
company to arbitrarily non-renew long-term workers and that there are
other ways of dealing with this than just joining the union–
especially for individuals. But, I guess he has to advertise.
- He also talks about how collective-bargaining is more difficult
with one person, but he does not mention that in many cases, the
individual is stronger on his or her own when it comes to RIGHTS. I
agree that when we talk about BENEFITS, a good union is needed.
(Watch this be totally bypassed by my “pals” on the board.)
- What is very odd is that there is a direct contrast between the so-
called “wins” of the Nova union and the “wins” of the Berlitz union.
The Nova union only mentions success with rights already guaranteed
to teachers under the law, but the Berlitz union sites examples of
benefits in addition to the law such as larger teacher’s rooms.
- Carlet is more focused on policing companies in terms of rights and
not necessarily benefits.
- Finally, Tench foolishly states that teachers are more interested
in themselves and that’s why they don’t join unions. (Of course I am
paraphrasing). But this is crazy. Unions are formed BECAUSE of self-
interest. Why did Berlitz union members bargain with their company
for a larger teacher’s room? Because they wanted AEON teachers to
use it? No, this was something that their collective SELF-INTEREST
thought was important. The overwhelming reasons for the lack of
interest in the Nova union are: 1) Nobody knows exactly what the
union has done; 2) The union has pushed for things teachers in
general were not interested in and 3) Teachers have seen no real
improvement in their working conditions either with or without the
union’s help (and I speak in terms of benefits, not rights they could
exercise, anyway), so they don’t feel it’s necessary to pay dues to
an organization that won’t get them, for example, National Holidays
off. What is crazy is that I have heard many teachers asking about a
union and when they finally find out what the union has done (or
HASN’T done), they become disinterested. After over ten years of
being in existence and people can count actual successes on one hand,
they are no longer sold on “benefits” the union has to offer.”
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Yep, that sounds about right…
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