Pub chain owner punished for neglecting to pay employees for overtime

The president of major pub chain operator Monteroza was punished with a
fine of 500,000 yen for failing to pay employees for overtime work.

Monteroza was charged by the Tokyo Seibu General Workers Union in April
2000 at the Mitaka Labor Standards Inspection Office. The Tokyo Prosecutors
Office Hachioji Branch indicted Monteroza in January 2001, and the company
admitted that it violated the Labor Standards Law and agreed to pay a fine.

The union said that Monteroza, which runs 953 pubs with about 23,000
employees throughout Japan, has constantly neglected to pay overtime pay in
its head office and all local pubs.

The company last September agreed to pay 130 million yen as overdue wages
and overtime pay to 50 workers of Shirokiya, one of Monteroza's pub chains,
who are union members. It also promised to pay about two billion yen in
backpay to other employees.

The union vice chair said, "To force workers to work overtime without pay
is a crime. It is serious for such a popular company to fail to give its
employees such a huge amount of overdue wages. I hope that the settlement of
this case will help solve other similar problems." (end)