To generally warn to others, definitely don't go to work as ESL teacher, or any job, in Japan or any other country foreign to you without a visa for that work. Usually, you'd have to pay for and book your own flight so you can use their refusal to pay up-front for your flight as a way to schedule as you wish (if they ask what's taking so long, blame them for not paying for your flight, demand first-class on your preferred day if you can); then you can schedule and pay once you have the visa. In turn, if they do schedule and pay for your flight, be wary that it could be a manipulation to get you there when they want you and/or to ensure you don't have a visa with you --don't expect them to give it you-- when you arrive so they can use the excuse that they don't have to pay for your work because you're not properly documented as worker. Obviously, you have the choice of boarding or not, but even without a visa, -provided by you, don't expect them to provide it- it might be tempting to take a free flight to a foreign country and easy to think that you'll get a visa. You could lose the job offer by not boarding the flight they gave you, but losing a job offer in a country foreign to you that doesn't come with visa-related cooperation or visa-related truth is not worth the offer anyway.

To publicize and emphasize vulnerability:
In my case, I didn't land without a visa. I started with a student visa, and left university for employment with a student visa intended and promised by employer to be changed to employment visa. I even met my employer before being hired (but got in trouble for being absent from class that day, though I tried to schedule with her for weekend but she preferred monday). Not that she wasn't late for my interview or even absent at least half the time, but it was the first day I met her so I wouldn't know the difference from her normal schedule. I figured that was just a busy day, the kind we all have once in a while. To her credit, she was on time to pick me up at the time of my arrival in her city, then brought me to the work-place, and left for her various "meetings", etc for like… 7 hours until she came back. It's not only sick leave that I was gypped on. It's like this process of first of all demanding to meet her at work-start time to check if I'm actually sick, being an hour late for the meeting while I can't hold my head up, showing up an hour later and agreeing that I'm sick and my hour of waiting was wasted valuable rest time. Then, a few hours later, while I'm at least half-asleep in pajamas, calling, begging me to come back and work in less than 10 minutes, and not paying at all for either the worked or cancelled time.

Again, if it were included in the monthly salary paid in full, it wouldn't so much matter the difference of sick leave or not. But since she didn't pay the monthly salary in full by any means, and deducted not only sick time-- but also cancelled-by-her or cancelled-by-student work-time, and didn't ever pay for the work-time of preparation, or wait-for-her-to-discuss time, or outside-work discussion appointment regarding work practices/policies while she's on the phone wasting the appointment time, still didn't get the discussion regarding work practices/policies/scheduling/training done, never paid overtime whether for teaching or for uselessly waiting for her, it really shows her intent not to pay, and only then as little as she is required by Labour Inspector. I didn't think it was appropriate to ask her to pay, but it got to the point that I was so confused about how she was planning to pay and wanted to set my budget but couldn't understand how, that I did ask. She said that was greedy to ask and if I keep saying "Pay, pay, pay" that shows her that I'm working for the money and I don't have the heart to teach for the kids. Later she said that her husband told her it's an important part of our employment relationship for her to pay, and for me to be paid.

Beyond that, her excuses of not having to pay because she didn't need my native-speaking skill for that level of the class, because it was preparation time so it wasn't paid by the student, because I didn't have an employment visa for which the only blank part was employer forms and I submitted and completed all the other parts-- even with a fever on a bike in the rain, so she can't legally pay me to work without a visa-- because I cleaned the room after the class for a mess she didn't ask me to clean, because the students asked for their class to go longer but didn't request it in advance and didn't pay her for that long of a class, because she is a teacher- not manager- so she doesn't know how, because this student hasn't paid at all for 6 months [and she didn't have an eviction-type policy], among zillions of other excuses.

In the case of student-request for class extension, I could only assume, based on her other practices, that if I don't adhere to their request to extend the class, the consequence will be worse than missing the next class. At least I'm working, and if she overbooked or didn't show up for a class she said she'd be there, it was her fault, not mine. The then-understood-revised hourly pay for the first class is supposed to be higher than the hourly forthe second class, due to her default on her own questionably legal (150,000¥/month salary) monthly salary system, so why should I stop the supposed higher pay-rate class to go teach a lower-pay-rate class?, esp when she is supposed to be there for the next class that she doesn't need my native skills for, and changed the pay system so she doesn't pay for my native skills when she doesn't need them.

Further her threats like "If anyone [government] finds out about this, I could go to jail and you could too" really make it seem like she was trying to shut me up and go along not paying because of the convenient excuse that she was trying to follow of the law of not paying a foreign worker without a visa.

But in general, for the teacher who may consider leaving a visa, yes it is a very big red flag and a good reason not to go. No matter how much pressure they put on you to go or how badly they need a teacher, or how nice they seem, or whatever the excuse, there's no reason to give in if you haven't gotten the visa yet. They don't pay for your flight in advance anyway (they sometimes reimburse after arrival) so it's their own fault for not paying for your flight that you might not be there when they want you. It's pretty easy to not fall for the typical pattern but sometimes, like in my case, it isn't the typical pattern of coming just to teach, or starting with teaching.

And then comes the point of why didn't I complain to Labour Standards Office before leaving Japan. With all due respect, yes, I've learned it's best to make that complaint as soon as you can, or at least before you leave. First of all, I didn't have money for personal expenses because she didn't pay for my work, and i forced whatever groceries and cooking supplies I could onto a credit card. Then I was sick, weather was very cold, I didn't have heavy clothes because of the weight in travelling and couldn't buy because they were too expensive and I didn't have money because she didn't pay. Before I was sick, I was fed lies that she was working on the visa application, will pay for the transportation, housing, etc, will give contract and discuss employment policies/relationship later and we'll discuss it at the meeting, although it seems pretty simple to me. Maybe she needs to get my signature at the meeting or something, otherwise, she can just figure it out and pay, as far as I'm concerned. She didn't show up for the meeting so she postponed to tomorrow. Didn't show up tomorrow, the next day, the next day, never showed up. I certainly thought it was awkward but not clearly statutorily illegal until she didn't pay the full monthly salary by the time she paid 2 months into the employment term.

Further, Japan makes regular things so complicated. I'd have had to had my claims, if I were even to understand the illegality, into Japanese, which may not be impossible. But while the weather was cold and I was hungry and/or sick, I just wanted to freaken survive, and preferably without overstaying the student visa, which was cancelled as of the day I left university. A grace period is given but I was pushing that, while I was trying to sort out the things at work with Mrs. Otani. I wasn't so concerned with translation or reporting as with survival and with avoiding overstaying, and still was under the impression she'd pay within the week from the day that I left. So that was another lie, that she'd pay the rest that she owes, which I assumed to include housing/transportation reimbursement, overtime, sick leave, work-cancellation, etc, within the week of my departure from Fukui.

She insisted to only make the payment to the account in Japan, knowing, as I had told her clearly, I wouldn't be ther and couldn't check it. The account I had did not offer online banking. Even if I had known that I'd have the need to check the balance online and couldn't with the account I already registered by the time I got to Fukui, I wouldn't have been able to establish a bank account in Fukui, one that offers online banking, without her help for interpretation. Fukui has like no English because it's a small town. In Tokyo or Osaka it's ok to come without an interpreting companion.

Why do I think she wouldn't have helped if I never asked or gave her the chance, however moot this point may be? Well she was late by 1 hr + for everything for me, cited that I'm not busy so I can do xyz for her (often off work time) while she goes meets an hour late with ABC-san or answers this or that phone call, etc. When she was late, her first excuse was phone calls, then phone calls, then it was "I couldn't tell you were in here (on time) because the center light was not on," then it was phone calls, phone calls, phone calls, phone calls, phone calls, phone calls, phone calls, phone calls, phone calls, then it was daughter's baby-fetus is sideways, then phone calls, phone calls, phone calls, phone calls, phone calls, phone calls, phone calls, phone calls, phone calls, (never emails), phone calls, phone calls, then it was husband in hospital, phone calls, phone calls, phone calls, phone calls, phone calls, phone calls, then it was taxi's fault, then phone calls, then phone calls, then meeting at Office X, then phone calls, phone calls, phone calls, phone calls, phone calls, then meeting at Office Y, phone calls, phone calls, phone calls, phone calls, then meeting with B-san, then phone calls. When I was sick, she specifically said "I can't take you to the doctor" which is not far from legal violation. Even if I did ask her to help me set up a bank account, and even if there was a good bank there, and even if we got past that and even if did offer online banking, she would constantly re-arrange the time she's going to go there with me, such that it would waste hours of waiting and never get done.

That's what she did with visa-application parts. Then even if she does take me there, then the tellers would see oh oops employee has a student visa, oh ooops the employment visa is not in passport and is still pending because of the employer pages. They check the ID and visa, while it's not required to be an employee to have an account, presumably it would have been her bank at which that would have happened, if it ever could have happened, and presumably she'd be cautious of them noticing her business-account transfers to my account. That is, if I were to have an account in the same bank as her, ifffff she were to actually pay me adequately, and presumably she'd be cautious of them wondering why she's transferring to a student, as part of her "If anyone finds out, I could go to jail and you could too." SOOOO, it definitely wouldn't have been worth even asking for her help to create a bank account that offers online transfers, even if only because of the waiting to meet her to go to the bank with her, only to be met with excuses for why we can't go at that appointment we set, and to be re-arranged for another time that is constantly rescheduled never delivered.

It took a year for me to get back there and check, and find out that she never paid.

For the "I couldn't tell you were in here because the center light wasn't on" excuse, I was there on time. I didn't think there needed to be a confirmation that I arrived at the appointment on time, other than just arriving there on time. The side lights were on, but the center light was not on. She never said anything like you need to turn on the center light for me to meet you in here, to let me know that you're here. She did say to turn the lights on for the students during our business hours but that meeting was way before the business hours. Although I count that meeting regarding visa, contract, etc, as overtime work, I wouldn't have thought the center lights need to be on prior to work time like they should at work time. For most of the meetings that she came to with me, she'd usually take phone calls the whole time, even after she just arrived an hour late, and talk to me for like maybe a minute after the phone call, and then leave early from me without getting anything done to go to some other meeting.

While it's not illegal to leave someone to go to a meeting or answer a phone call during your appointment with someone, those resulted in her failures, as employer, to discuss/present contract, visa application, employment policies, etc, with employee, which is statutory negligence, which is illegal. She is required by law to discuss and present those things anyway. It doesn't really matter legally why she doesn't fulfill those responsibilities. But in this case, it was statutory negligence, which is yet another way in which it's illegal.