The Law Doesn’t Matter? Taking Your Dispatch Employer To Court (Rodou Shinpan) Part 2

Roudou Shimpan (Labour Court) Part 2

A special report by David Klan

[THIS IS THE SECOND PART OF A 3 PART SERIES. LINKS TO THE OTHER PARTS: PART 1, PART 3]

In the previous article I discussed the events that led up to my involvement in the Japanese legal system. After working for nearly 3 years as a System Engineer with a major manufacturer, my contract was abruptly terminated and I was dismissed from both my job and the dispatch company I was working through. After exhausting the options available through the Labour Standards offices, Hello Work, and the Dispatch Administration office, my lawyers and I submitted the case to the Roudou Shimpan (Labour Court). On October 30th at 10am I arrived at the court building located between Sakuradamon and Kasumigaseki.

I wisely chose Exit A1:

Image stolen from Google Earth:

Surrounded by people with problems, just like me… Except that their pharmaceuticals are making their livers explode:

And finally the building where all the magic happens:

Two lines lead in to the building, one for lawyers and another for the plebeians. That day there was a crowd of people waiting to pass security in the civilian line so we went around the back of the building to the Family Court entrance and made it upstairs on time for the first meeting. I brought two Japanese lawyers and one American lawyer with me. The Japanese lawyers, the president of the Dispatch company, and I entered a modest meeting room with a large, oval executive table surrounded by ten chairs. In the corner was a small desk where the reporter transcribed the events of the meeting.

I still haven’t figured out seating etiquette, so I left it to my lawyers. I sat near the end of the table away from the entrance and my lawyers sat in the middle followed by the President, nearest the entrance. Three men came in from another entrance and sat at the opposite side of the table: An HR representative, a judge, and a Union representative.

At the beginning of the meeting my lawyers requested that my American lawyer also be allowed to attend to help translate, but the president rejected that request and he had to wait outside during the proceedings. I noted that the president did not bring a lawyer, did not change his affidavit from the Mediation, and apparently had not consulted with a lawyer up to this point, either. I doubt that even up to this point he knew what sort of trouble he was facing.

The first order of business was deciding how to communicate. My Japanese is good enough to understand what is going on and contribute, but I was afraid that I may not understand some nuances and answer questions based on my faulty interpretation. The judge agreed that my lawyer should be able to rephrase questions in simple Japanese for me. And so the meeting started.

Within my affidavit, I included the following main items:

• Letters of Reference from my former employer showing that I performed my duties and had the support of my colleagues.
• An email from me stating my demands to the president and his response, promising to work to fulfill those requests.
• A copy of my passport showing my Visa status, the dates I was on business trips, business trip expense forms, and time sheets.
• A copy of the meeting minutes when I was let go from the Dispatch company on December 22, 2006.
• A copy of my bank statement showing that I had not been reimbursed for nearly 400,000Y ($3,500) of my travel expenses. I did not even realize this was missing until I studied my bank records after I was dismissed.

The judge needed to clarify three issues:

1. What conditions/contract I agreed to when I joined the company
2. How my employment ended
3. What happened to the business trip expenses

The judge started by asking me about the nature of my employment. I explained that I was employed as a dispatch worker through the president’s agency, but was working under full-time conditions with the manufacturer.

The judge asked the president to explain his company’s employment structure and to clarify why he was employing me in the way that he was.
–all quotes are paraphrased–
“I employ many foreigners and usually the foreigners prefer to take as much money as they can without worrying about things like insurance and taxes because they will just go back to their home countries in a few years. I’m doing nothing different than other dispatch agencies working with Canon, Mitsubishi, NEC, etc,.. I explained all of this to David during his interview and he said he just wanted the money.”

The judge asked me to explain what we talked about at the first interview.
“First of all, I have future plans in Japan and it wasn’t until after I was hired that I became suspicious about the conditions of my employment. The two previous employers I worked with employed me properly, taking care of my taxes, pension notebook (nenkin techou), and monthly pay slips itemizing deductions. The interview was three years ago and I only remember discussing wages, giving him my pension book and him handing it back to me saying that it was not necessary.” I still don’t know what the little blue pension book is for, but if he said I don’t need it, I was not ready to disagree right before starting a new job.

Then the judge went on to ask the president about how my employment ended.
“[David] told me he would quit if I could not fulfill all of his requests and give him a pay raise. I tried to get those things for him from the manufacturer, but they refused and we were left with no choice but to let him go. I guess it wasn’t as easy as he thought it was to find another job, eh? That’s why we’re here today. Life can’t be so sweet.”

And to me:
“Please refer to the email between us. After our meeting in October I wrote down exactly what we discussed. It says nothing about a payraise and I intentionally was not looking for money. I simply needed to be employed legally to allow me to pursue a career in Japan. Under the work conditions that were forced on me, I was like a transient here. I simply wanted to remedy that situation and used strong words to do it because they had not taken me seriously before then.”

Finally the judge asked the president about missing travel expenses and this was his response.
“Oh, that uh, my accounting executive takes care of that and I am not involved in the payroll system. However, I believe that the travel expenses were used to cover his apartment deposit and several months of rent that were not accounted for.”

The judge came back to me and asked if I understood what the president was talking about?
“Sorry, no idea. I understand the words that are coming out of his mouth but not the meaning.” I was never privy to their creative accounting practices.

During all of this, the HR and Union representatives were just listening and taking notes. They listened actively to me and nodded their heads as I explained myself. While the president was talking, all three of the panel were furrowing their brows and cocking their heads to the side as if to say, ‘this guy is deluded… drunk with power, perhaps?’

After the judge consulted with everybody, the next meeting was set for November 21, 2007. I was given the opportunity to appoint a court translator for around 40,000Y ($350), since the president was vetoing any outside help that I wanted to bring in.

The next meeting would prove more difficult to handle, as the judge probed further into the details to prepare for his decision…