Hello Institute in Fukui-city, Fukui-prefecture, Japan, presided by Mrs. Kimie Otani, president, principal and employer of Hello Institute, still has not paid for the work I did and other fees I paid for the sake of the “employment” at Hello Institute. In addition to her failure to pay for my work, I expect that Hello Institute pays adequately adjusted for inflation at the time of the payment and interest due according to the Security of Wage Payment Law at 14.6% per year.
Hello Institute may owe for other monies or payments as determined upon investigation and/or prosecution, and such monies will be included in the amount due and required to be paid for this post to be deleted. In the case of partial payment, this post will be updated honestly and promptly, reflecting the situation.

The following is a list of points on Mrs. Otani’s excuses and manipulations involved in her failures to pay adequately or at all.

1. Failed to pay for my transportation to Fukui and hotel first nights in Fukui First I came for an interview from within Japan, and Hello Institute did not pay for any of my transportation to Fukui for the interview, back to my residence in Japan after the interview, or transportation for moving to Fukui to work. I had to spend not only the first night in Fukui in a hotel, since the previous native English speaking teacher was still using the apartment, but I stayed in the hotel for 7 days, because I couldn’t move in everything at once, especially without help from any Hello Institute representative. Hello Institute was contracted to pay for my hotel stay and transportation to and from Fukui, and entirely failed to pay for either one at all whatsoever.

2. Failed to pay for overtime work Every time the employer of Hello Institute, Mrs. Kimie Otani, planned to meet to discuss our business in the employment relationship, sign the contract, and apply for the visa, she would arrive at least an hour late, sometimes 2 hours late. She wouldn’t get anything done, and I certainly couldn’t either without her cooperation, while I waited for her outside of work hours. She consistently postponed the meetings until so much later that they never happened, and if she did miraculously attend, she’d be on her phone the whole time so we couldn’t get anything done, until either she had to leave “for a meeting” or the student came. Not only did she not provide a contract until a month into my employment term or not even begin to apply for my visa until a month into my employment term, but she kept me waiting for hours not designated as working hours and hid that overtime element from me because I hadn’t seen the contract. Ultimately, she never paid me for these overtime wasted meeting hours, and she never completed my visa application.

3. Failed to complete my visa application All along she cited the excuse why she doesn’t have to pay me is that she can’t legally because I don’t have a working visa. Not only did she apply for it late, but she didn’t even complete the application. The reason the visa application wasn’t complete is entirely her fault. She left the “employer” pages blank. I did my part to fill it out as soon as she asked me to, as soon as I found out about each part from her. She had implied that she was submitting before I arrived by requesting that I send her my personal info so she can apply for my visa. I sent that right away and those documents arrived before I arrived in Fukui. (I even had trouble with language, copiers, etc. making copies of some of the documents and putting in extra effort to get them copied so that I could send them to her.) My visa application could and should have been applied for then. It took a few weeks before I found out that all the info I sent her served hardly any purpose, since she still assigned me to fill out the “employee” part of the application and later found out she hadn’t begun to fill out the “employer” part. I’m ok with filling out my own section but not ok with being informed so late in the employment term that it hasn’t even been completed, nevermind submitted. You’d think she requested that info so we could have a complete, submitted work visa application by the time I arrive. Even without my visa application submitted and without me knowing it wasn’t submitted and thinking it was submitted before my arrival, she demands that I work and claims that we’re waiting for the visa to process from the immigration office. Then I can be paid once I have a visa.
Finally, about a month later, she claimed her part of the visa application was done, ready for submission, and she drove me to the Immigration office to submit the application. When I found out she left the pages blank at my second document-submission at the Immigration office the next business day, the immigration officer told me there is a 2-week deadline to submit the documents completed and told me that it would take less than 5 minutes for her to fill out the employer information. Even with 2 weeks to do a 5-minute-or-less task, she never did it. She used that lack of my visa, caused by her failure to completely apply for it, as her excuse for failing to document the amount she paid and for failing to pay the amount she still hasn’t paid.

4. Failed to do any of her employer responsibilities regarding visa application For any document that needed to submitted, she dumped the responsibility to submit it at the Immigration Office entirely on me. She didn’t stay at the office with me, didn’t drive me there in a city new to me except once of four visits, her violations of law. Most of the arriving, submitting, and waiting I had to do with a cold and fever of 100 Fahrenheit or 37celsius. She left long before my name was called, and that departure of hers caused me to have to wait that much longer for her to come back until Immigration Officers gave up that she wouldn’t come back. Meanwhile, I was coughing, sneezing, and struggling to keep my head up.

5. Failed to pay for first month of work Upon seeing my contract in early November for the first time after all her failed meetings to discuss contract or visa, I found out I was expected to work without pay for one month so the visa application would be processing. I had just finished working a month, and never was paid. According to Mrs. Otani herself, Japanese immigration law does allow an employer to pay an employee when the visa application is processing and allows the employee to be paid for his work as long as the visa application is processing. But she took a month while I worked hard to even get the visa application to the point of processing. So she said that legal paying during processing doesn’t apply, since my visa application wasn’t processing yet, by her own faults.

6. Didn’t pay sick leave when I missed work sick She continued scheduling lessons and didn’t cancel them while I was sick. She mandated that I get up from my rest and dismissal that she granted only hours before to go teach the class at the school because the student has arrived or is arriving. Then she later said she doesn’t have to pay when I’m sick because I didn’t teach. The time she granted me off should be paid as sick leave, not completely absent voluntary time off. And the time she paid for when I did teach sick should be paid adequately according to the salary in the contract, not only 1000 ¥ per hour. She never took me to a doctor, helped with or paid for medical treatment, or any other elements of employer’s legal requirement when employee becomes sick.

7. Failed to pay for preparation time She never paid for any preparation time ever, and demanded that I work it. Preparation time is 9.75 hours per week.

8. Failed to pay adequately according to the contracted wage The contract prescribes a monthly salary, but she paid me the only time she ever paid on an hourly basis, citing I missed too much work due to my illness to work the monthly minimum, which actually wasn’t true if she counted preparation time as legally required. The payment for my hourly work wasn’t even the pro-rated hourly rate based on the contracted monthly salary, it was illegally less. She actually paid at 2 different rates, depending on whether the students needed an native English teacher or not, neither rate of which was at least the hourly pro-rated rate. For some of the payment, she didn’t even pay for the full duration of the class or the full duration of my work, and still paid a low hourly rate.

9. Manipulated visa application cancellation When she finally gave me her attention and I could tell her I’d resign, which took 3 weeks of continued postponing of a meeting to get her attention, she said we’d have to cancel the visa application. That sounds like extra work to me because the application was never completely filled out by the failure of hers and hers alone. But that’s ok, especially if she’s going to drive me. She not only fails to drive me, but she also failed to compensate for my not knowing the directions. In my lack of knowledge of the city new to me, I get lost and get there about a half hour late. I call her to ask how to get there, and asking people for directions in Japanese is not an option unless she can talk to them in Japanese on my phone and interpret. But she doesn’t help with directions when I ask her. I need directions to the building or a ride, both of which she failed to provide. But finally I get there late and she’s already told the immigration officer that I’m leaving the job and canceling the visa application because I’m sick. Well, that’s true I’ve been sick for 3 weeks while she demanded I work. But I only claimed my resignation is due to illness for convenience. I only told the students I was leaving because I’ve been so sick, which she and I agreed upon as the reason for that purpose to protect her reputation, and because they don’t really understand what I say or the meaning of lacking a visa by Mrs. Otani’s faults. She took her protection all the way to the next level by not only telling the immigration officer behind my back that I’m leaving because I’ve been sick, but also watching what I wrote on the resignation form, so if I said anything else about her failures she would say it’s not ture, and I made it up, in front of the immigration officers. Also I take note how she managed so well to arrive to the immigration office for the cancellation on time, but she completely failed to arrive for anything else on time.

10. Scheduled additional lessons after visa application cancellation She kept asking me to teach them one more and one more class, to give them goodbyes. But the goodbye lessons were schedule even after the visa application was cancelled, and it was absolutely not possible for me to have a visa, and she knew that.

11. Failed to deposit payment for final weeks of work and everything else she failed to pay Finally, she said before I left that she couldn’t make the final payment yet, because she needs to calculate and figure everything out before she makes the payment. So she will make the payment by the end of 2012, which would have been fine and legal. She insisted she could only make the deposit to my account in Japan, and she could absolutely not pay to an account outside Japan, like one that I’d have access to once I left. Though I couldn’t check or access it, I assumed I’d have that payment when I got back into Japan. I checked the account in December 2013 at the first chance I had when I got back in Japan. To my surprise, there was no deposit from her in my account!

I'd like to thank eslteachersboard.com website for allowing me to post this conveniently and offering credit to "disgruntled teachers with good reason to be disgruntled." Thanks to this website and all readers.