Newborn labor union successfully forced restaurant chain to pay unpaid overtime wage to 6,000 part-timers

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Newborn labor union successfully forced restaurant chain to pay unpaid overtime wage to 6,000 part-timers

Major food-service firm Zensho has paid all of its 6,000 part-time workers working at "Sukiya" restaurants unpaid extra wages for their overtime from last November.

This was announced on January 9 by representatives of the Young Contingent Workers' Union at a press conference held in the Labor Ministry.

The Labor Standards Law requires corporations to add to the wage at least 25 percent of the normal wage in the event that the employees work more than eight hours in a day. Zensho, however, only paid the overtime when the workers worked more than 175 hours a month.

The company stopped this illegal conduct due to a protest by a labor union that was recently established by six part-time workers, all in their 20s, working at a Sukiya restaurant in Shibuya in Tokyo.

When these workers were fired on the grounds of remodeling of the restaurant, they joined the Young Contingent Workers' Union and came to realize that the way in which Zensho paid for overtime work was indeed illegal.

Through bargaining with Zensho, they successfully made the company withdraw the dismissal and pay the unpaid extra wages for overtime they worked in the last two years.

Last November, the six workers announced the establishment of the Sukiya Union and asked the company to pay unpaid overtime to all employees in accordance with the law.

At the press conference, Young Contingent Workers' Union Secretary General Kawazoe Makoto said, "This union, established by only six workers, has achieved a significant improvement in working conditions for 6,000 workers. We will continue to strive to have the company pay fully unpaid overtime, to change the company's business makeup, and to create workplaces where workers can work without anxieties."

After the foundation of the Sukiya Union, more than 10 Sukiya workers in Sendai and Yokohama cities joined the union. They requested the company to pay them unpaid overtime for the last two years, but the company has refused to make such payment, claiming that the grounds for their request are not clear.
- Akahata, January 10, 2007