Is it legal for a dispatch company to ask employees to use paid leave to cover days that the…

6 comments

1. Does the dispatch company *know* when the work site is off? If not, then don’t tell them and just stay home.

2. ALT dispatch? School closed for winter break? I believe they can set the dates for up to 5 of your days off, though someone can correct me if that’s wrong. Have they already assigned 5 of your nenkyu around the rest of the year? Is the school actually closed or are students just not coming?

3. They can request that you do, but they can’t force you to take vacation days.

4. This is what my dispatch company does. If it’s an off day on the work site, but not on dispatch company, it’s either I take a PTO or do a “self study” for 8 hours. This is called a みなし出勤日.

   If off day for dispatch company but not work site, I can either work normally and the whole day’s pay would be counted as overtime, or I can take the day off without using PTO, although approval of work site is needed. This is called a みなし休日.

   Since on my worksite there’s not a lot of みなし出勤日 in a year, only around 1 or 2, I’d usually just take the PTO.

   Legality-wise? I don’t know, really. Tried looking in my dispatch company’s big rule-book but couldn’t find any info.

5. They can legally dictate when you take up to 5 days of your annual leave per year.

   However, this would have to be premeditated and listed in your contact. They can’t just ad-hoc decide day when they please

6. It’s against the Japanese constitution for an employer to take your nenkyu if they’re asking you not to come into work. A lot of workplaces will act like they have no idea and will try to do it anyway though. I don’t know if your company has some sort of shady workaround but it’s worth looking into your rights as a worker in Japan.