You stayed late again. You worked through your break again. You answered emails at home, marked papers after hours, showed up early because that’s “just what you do.” Nobody paid you for any of it. 

That’s not Japanese culture. That’s not dedication – even though bosses like to explain in that it way. It’s simply wage theft. 

And it’s illegal. 

Here’s the part employers count on you not knowing: it’s illegal, and it’s rarely punished. Not because the law is weak – the law is clear – but because almost nobody enforces it. The labour ministry’s own numbers prove it: in 2024, 30.6% of worker complaints filed with the Labour Standards Inspection Office (LSO) were never even investigated. Not rejected – never actioned. 

Japan has 3,122 labour standards inspectors covering roughly 3.8 million workplaces. The International Labor Organization says a developed economy needs around one inspector per 10,000 workers. For the 55 million workers covered by Japan’s labour laws, that’s about 5,500 inspectors, but Japan has barely half that. In other words: even when you’re right, even when the law is on your side, there’s often nobody there to enforce it. 

That’s exactly why employers get away with it. And that’s exactly why we exist. 

File alone, and sometimes the employer hits back – fewer shifts, being frozen out, dismissal. And then what happens to the employer? Nothing. It’s illegal. It’s almost never punished. That’s the whole game: they bet you’ll calculate the risk and stay quiet. Most people do the maths and decide reporting alone isn’t worth it. They’re not wrong to be cautious. They’re wrong to think there’s no other way. 

There is. Here’s what we’re doing instead. 

The General Union is asking members to track their unpaid work time – not alone, but together, workplace by workplace. This isn’t only for members. If you’re not in the union yet but want to know how to actually fight wage theft, get in touch with us too. 

We collect the data as a group. We negotiate with the employer as a group. And if the employer won’t budge, we go to the Labor Standards Office as a group – because an LSO moves faster and takes a case more seriously when a union is standing behind it than when one worker walks in alone. 

Collective, documented evidence is one of the strongest levers we have. It turns “he said, she said” into a pattern nobody can credibly deny. It puts us in a position to negotiate from strength, not from one person’s isolated complaint that an employer can ignore or bury. 

If you think you’re doing unpaid work – and if you’re in education, transport, hospitality, IT, or almost any other sector in Japan, there’s a good chance you are – don’t sit on it, and don’t go it alone. 

Join the General Union’s wage theft tracking campaign. Get in touch, and we’ll show you how to start – whether you’re already a member or not.