Hi everyone.
I am a college student in Japan. My visa is student type, which allows me to work 28 weekly hours. I was already working as an English teacher for about 14 hours/week but since the salary is not enough to support my studies and they didn’t need me to work more hours I decided to search for an extra job. Eventually I came up with another english teaching job, only once a week 4 hours. I thought it was a perfect match since it didn’t exceed the 28h limit and the hourly salary was pretty good.
The new part time job is a very small juku that has been recently opened, but apparently is doing pretty well since they have a lot of students enrolled.
I signed the contract which stipulates that the salary is paid on the 10th of the following month. Started working from the middle of March, so I only worked for about 3 days on March. From the beginning I saw a couple of red flags tbh. For example the owner didn’t seem to be familiar with the weekly 28h rule, so I had to remind him by myself. Also he never asked me for my bank account. But I thought it would be fine since there was still plenty of time till pay day. But days kept passing and no one asked for my bank info. I only work there once a week so my chances to talk to my colleagues or my boss are very limited, but we have a Line Group. The long awaited pay day arrives, and no one reaches to ask me about my bank account. I felt this is kind of weird but they seemed pretty busy so I thought maybe they just forgot about me. Since I don’t work till next week I texted the owner by myself asking about my salary.
Then something unexpected happens: he left me on read. 3 days have passed and still no answer. What in the earth?
Of course, I want to receive my salary. But on top of that I want to stop working on this eikaiwa as soon as possible. The reasons are because I think is pretty odd that the boss doesn’t even answer, and of course because I still haven’t received my salary. I still have to work next week but honestly I don’t want to keep working there.
According to the contract you have to inform with 1 month of anticipation to leave, but for a reason like this, would it be possible to leave immediately? Also, are there any real risks they actually don’t pay me? I have been working for only a month, once a week so they don’t even owe me that much money. Maybe a couple 万s for march. But of course I need that money. (I mean is my right to get it! lol) Everything is so odd I don’t even feel like going there next week and work as nothing happened.
Of course, if I go there next week I will try to speak to the boss face to face. But the fact that he ignored my message asking for my salary gives me headaches. Why would he do that? I also considered the option of him wanting me to resign (? I don’t know if that makes sense . But I just don’t understand how he would be okay with facing the risk of me reporting him for this.
Btw, I found this part time job on indeed and everything seems pretty normal, they have lots of kids enrolled and their reviews on google are amazing. So I’m pretty confused
What should I do? Reclaim for my salary and resign? (Via Line/Mail) Go there and claim it in person, and later resign? Labor union?
If anyone with similar experiences or knowledge on what should I do could give their view on this issue I would be so thankful
Thank you!
by akabonita33