Major pub chain to pay employees 2.1 billion yen in unpaid overtime

Monte Rosa, Japan's biggest pub chain company, on September 6 promised to pay its employees 2.1 billion yen in unpaid overtime and to apologize for its discrimination against trade union members.

The trade union is the pub Shirokiya branch of the Western Tokyo General Workers Union which is affiliated to the National Confederation of Trade Unions (Zenroren). The union was established in May 1998, and the out-of-court settlement came as a total victory for the union after a three years' court struggle.

Monte Rosa has 950 establishments throughout the country, with about 20,000 employees. The company in the past was ordered to pay 1.7 billion yen in unpaid overtime. In total, the company will pay 3.8 billion yen in unpaid overtime, which is the biggest ever payment of this kind.

According to the company's work rules, those who come one minute late for work (even for the reason of an inevitable traffic delay) are subject to a wage cut of 10,000 yen, and those who absent themselves for one day, a wage cut of 80,000 yen.

After employees set up a trade union in 1998 to resist the severe working conditions, the company was hostile toward the union and discriminated against union members by telling them to do night work.

The number of union members declined from the initial 70 to only three. But the three women members in their twenties carried on their struggle, and through the Internet the struggle won support from the outside.

In addition to the promise to pay the unpaid overtime, the agreement included a promise that the company president would apologize to all the employees and improve working conditions, beginning from equipping all stores with a room for rest.

The payment of 3.8 billion yen in unpaid overtime wages means a great advance in the movement to eliminate unpaid overtime work. This will be particularly encouraging to young people working as temps and part-timers in fast-food and restaurant businesses and who are vulnerable to corporations' illegal labor activities. (end)