Obligatory English is my second language, please excuse any weird sentences.
**The facts:**
I am currently on a Working Holiday Visa and working as an english teacher in an international school. My visa expires on April (next month). My current contract period is until March 31^(st), when all teachers have their contracts renewed (or not).
On February, I was offered to renew my contract for the next school year (April 2024 to March 2025). I was also offered the company’s sponsorship for a Work Visa application, so that I can continue working here. I agreed, and we signed the new contract which will start on April 1^(st). The company said they would start the visa application process. **I was not made aware that they would be paying a fee for this.** I was under the impression that I was going to pay the application fee when it was my turn to submit the necessary documents at a later date.
A couple weeks later they gave me some forms to fill for the visa application process. I filled the fields that they marked for me with my info.
On March 1^(st) I tended my resignation notice effective on April 1^(st). One month notice as per the contract. I also informed them that I’m no longer interested in moving forward with the Work Visa application. We verbally confirmed that I would work until the current contract ends on March 31^(st) and that the notice period was ok.
Today (March 26) I was told that the company is deducting ¥10.000 from my last salary as a “penalty” for making them pay for the visa application fee and then not going through with it. Neither my contract nor the employment regulations handbook say anything about something like this being a reason for deduction of salary.
**My take:**
I am angry and surprised by this. Granted, ¥10.000 is not a tremendous amount of money but it’s still more than 5% of my monthly take home pay, and enough to be upset about. It seems incredible to me that the company can just decide to spend money on my behalf without telling me and then deduct it from my salary. It was not obvious to me that the company had decided to pay for the visa processing fee.
I inmediatly told them that they can’t just deduct money from my salary for expenses I don’t even know about, and they just said, word for word, “this is the law in Japan”.
I know that I’m the foreigner here and that I should expect Japanese regulations to be different than those from my country. I know that its only fair for me to pay for my Work Visa. But the way they did it is they practically forced me to pay it without telling me how much it is beforehand.
Besides, they informed me at last minute so that I don’t have time to argue, or at least that’s how it feels. It feels like they are taking advantaje of me because I’m a foreigner and it’s more difficult for me to research the legality of this and fight it. Finally, I have been having disagreements with my boss recently and this feels like retaliation for that.
**My question:**
Is this legal? Is this fair? Am I wrong here? Do you have any tips? I want to avoid the deduction if possible, or get back at them in a fair way just for my inner peace.
**TL;DR: I quit my job and now my company is deducting money from my salary as penalty for not going through with my visa application.**
by ButICantHelpFalling