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To double-down on their ridiculous claim that employees were not really employees, Takatsuki city took things one-step further and decided to appeal against the unemployment insurance decision.

To make things even worse, the General Union recently discovered that Takatsuki city used ¥1,296,000 ($11,700 USD) of tax-payer’s money to hire their attorney just to argue that the employment contract that they had with the AETs was not an employment contract (and so on).

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On May 23rd, 2016, the Osaka Labor Bureau held a final investigative session over the issue.

During the hearing, Takatsuki city had to stand up to basic questions such as “How did you explain to the Immigration Bureau that the employment contract was not an employment contract?” and “If the written employment contract does not reflect the reality of the situation, then how did Takatsuki city calculate the salary which it paid to AETs for their work?”

As one might expect, no clear answers were forthcoming from Takatsuki city in reply to such basic questioning.

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One of the General Union’s members, Mary, understood the importance of this final investigation, and participated by taking unpaid leave to testify against Takatsuki and their ridiculous claims.

In direct contrast to Takatsuki city’s performance, Mary’s work at the hearing was brilliant.

Mary clearly answered the questions that were raised by the Osaka Labor Bureau investigators and, at the very end of the session, she clearly stated that the argument that Takatsuki city was trying to push was a lie.

She concluded her statement by saying, “I hope that the ruling will shine a light upon the dark side of Takatsuki city, which had been hidden for years.”

We expect the final ruling to be handed down in about one month. In the meantime, we will soon be exposing more examples of the money wasted by the city on lawyers in this case.

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