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Before we begin, it’s important to remember the “golden rule” of the Labor Standards Act which gives us the basis to say, where applicable, that certain contract clauses are illegal:

In a nutshell, anything that goes against the law is superseded by it (making it illegal).

So, with that in mind…

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While not illegal, we’ve highlighted it because it provides context for the “morally questionable” side of this dissection, and we’ll be bringing it up a few times. It’s an average salary for this kind of work, but that’s not the issue.

That part comes next…

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In a standard “Monday to Friday” working week, the employee would be expected to work from 8:00am until 6:10pm. Doing the math, such a week would result sixty one hours of work per week (rounded up).

That’s only assuming that an employee begins work at exactly 8:00am and leaves work at exactly 6:10pm, too. It doesn’t take into account all of the extra things that are work but not counted as work (bearing in mind that “work that isn’t counted as work” will often be closely scrutinized by a Labor Standards Office, as they count it as unpaid work).

Assuming that an employee is permitted forty-five minutes of rest per day, that would still clock in at around fifty six hours of work a week.

That’s a real problem, and here’s why:

However, that’s not all…

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As we can see, working nine hours a day, five days a week, isn’t the extent of the working hours that World International Kinder School expects its employees to work: their working hours are extended on Wednesdays, and “occasional” Saturdays or Sundays, which may or may not add a further nine hours to the total average.

So, not only is World Kinder International School breaking labor law by forcing employees to work more than forty hours a week, they’re also breaking labor law by making them work for more than eight hours per day.

Suffice to say, that’s quite a notable violation of the law.

It gets worse, though…

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If an employer has an employee work for more than forty hours a week, anything over that forty hour mark has to be paid at an overtime rate.

Now, while it is illegal to make an employee work for more than forty hours, there are conditions and circumstances (often in agreement with a trade union) that such overtime work can be permitted in certain situations.

Those circumstances are somewhat in-depth, however, and outside the scope of this article.

For now, it’s enough to say that it’s unlikely that a private company such as World Kinder International School has met those conditions.

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Taking Article 32-4-2 into further consideration, we also see that World Kinder International School should be paying an employee somewhere between 15 and 20 hours of overtime pay, per week.

The Labor Standards Act stipulates that such overtime pay should be calculated like so:

However, as we’ve noted, the World Kinder International School contract states:

That “1,500 Yen” would appear to be a set amount, rather than a percentage of the normal wage per working hour / day.

It seems fair to say that World International Kinder School is not only failing to pay its employees for all of the hours that they work beyond the forty hour limits, but – even if that WAS paid as overtime pay – the company is not paying overtime at the rate it is legally required to pay, either.

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If the fifty to sixty hour working week, the possibility of additional weekend work, and what seems to be a lack of overtime pay, all weren’t bad enough, this clause of the World International Kinder School contract essentially gives the employer carte blanche to extend the working hours to cover any situation, on day, until any time, without overtime pay.

Essentially, the employer has granted themselves the right to say, “these are you working hours, unless I say otherwise, and you are required to do what I say without question.”

This is not fair employment – this is compensated servitude.

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For the sake of argument, let’s say that you decide that you’re unhappy with these conditions.

Let’s say that, after working for more than sixty hours (without overtime pay), you’re a little bit upset at what appears to be first-world serfdom. You wanted to be a teacher – you didn’t want to be a serf.

Well, in the second part of this article, have I got some good news for you!

(Spoiler: it’s not really good news.)

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