I work for a private eikaiwa English school. When I joined the company, I signed a contract with a 2-year 10km non-competition clause, preventing me from jumping ship for a better job down the street.
I signed this because when I came to Japan, I wasn’t planning on staying for long, so it didn’t seem like a big deal. But, now I’d like to stay, and I want to quit this gig and get something better.
Can the company actually enforce this? The contract is only in English…
Thank you for any advice.
8 comments
I just found this
[https://www.smejapan.com/japan-business-guides/human-resources-guide/japanese-resignation-guidelines/?amp#covenant](https://www.smejapan.com/japan-business-guides/human-resources-guide/japanese-resignation-guidelines/?amp#covenant)
“Japan’s Constitution guarantees freedom of choice in occupation. Thus, a non-compete agreement for a certain period of time after leaving a former employer is only valid if the term, geographical scope, professional field, compensation, and restrictions are reasonable.”
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Is limiting my “freedom of choice in occupation” for 2 years and within 10km of my present workplace reasonable? I don’t think so, but the company has money for a lawyer and I do not so I just want to be sure I’m on solid ground before making a move.
You are fine; go ahead and quit your job.
But you should join the union – either the General Union or Tozen Union, depending where you live. They can help you in such matters, and believe me, you WILL need them one day – nearly every ESL company you will ever work for will try to break the law in some way. It’s inevitable.
No. But they will try and harass your new employer in not hiring you. They will attempt to blackball you, but most are empty threats. Finding people to work / genki gaijins are a dime a dozen. They might try and say your visa us tied to them (it’s not). I left on bad terms with a BOE once and they were so sour. Tried to find out where I was going but I refused to tell them. It was in another prefecture so they never found out.
Now in the IT world, there are real non-compete clauses that are inforcable. However, English?? No way.
This is not legal and not enforceable. Eikaiwas put a lot of bullshit like this in their contracts to scare FOBs who don’t know the labour laws. I agree about joining a union to stand up for you if you need it.
Do not hesitate to confirm with labor office.
[Counseling Services and Hotlines](https://www.check-roudou.mhlw.go.jp/soudan/foreigner_eng.html)
Company I work for used to have a separate sheet for the same kind of thing that we’d need to sign before signing the full contract. It was a 4km radius, but I can’t remember the term they specified.
It was clearly illegal, and they quietly dropped that condition somewhere along the line.
Not at all
How are you supposed to apply for another job when they ask for references? Wouldn’t they want to contact your company and then they’d probably try and say you cant? What do you do about reference from work then?