■ Solution date: August 2016 ■ Job title: Cooking assistance ■ Year of service: 3 years ■ Female part-time

The union members were adopted in April 2011 as cooking assistance for restaurants (caterers). The establishment was family-run and the union members were just one employee. The working conditions at the time of recruitment were only oral confirmation of 600 yen per hour with cooking assistance, depending on the season and the number of orders, working hours differed from day to day, and total monthly working hours ranged from 50 to 200 hours. Needless to say, the hourly wage of 600 yen was below the minimum wage of the year.

After retiring in December 2014, the union members learned of the minimum wage violation and reported it to the Labor Bases Office in May 2016. Since the investigation of the Labor Base was in July 2016, the right to claim for wages only existed for the last six months during the period when the highest wage violation was declared.

The employer replied to the Labor Bases Office survey that the hourly wage was in line with the wishes of the workers, and that the time card had already been disposed and the past working hours were not known. After that, the employer showed his intention to pay 45,000 yen to the labor base.

So the union member joined the union and asked the user to pay in writing. At the time of the application, it was found that a time card was present, so it was requested to verify working hours. On the other hand, Union asked the Labor Bureau to explain the grounds for confirming unpaid wages, and applied for postponement of aging, calculation of working hours based on time card records, and lump sum payment of unpaid wages. In addition, if the employer did not follow the guidance of the labor base office, he told them to sue.

Under the guidance of the Labor Base, the employer responded to the Labor Base with a lump sum of unpaid wages of several hundred thousand yen, and the union members decided to accept it. The wage claim has a two-year aging period, so it was a matter of keen awareness that it would be necessary to make a claim with a content-certified mail if it was detected early and aging occurred.