28/02/2018
We had filed a lawsuit for damages of Filipino technical trainees (: trainees) who came to consult with the legal consultation meeting in March, 2009.
According to the trainees, they were not paid for overtime work and were forced to work quietly.
Then we brought this case to a trail to the trainees’ company first and then trail to the union next.
For the company, we declared unfair labor practices to the Labor Relations Committee and
appealed to a trial due to non-payment overtime.
We settled these in settlement between us.
After that we filed the union that it ignored the human rights of the trainees.
For the union, finally we received a settlement recommendation between 100,000 yen and 200,000 yen from the judge.
Even though we had a settlement recommendation, there was a proposal to reconcile with 75,000 yen per person from the union and a lawyer states that there was room for negotiation.
As I would like to receive a better judgment with considering the new coming trainees, I asked
how much the union would accept the settlement. Then the union responded to us between 300,000 yen and 500,000 yen, and also it left the conclusion us.
Why did it offer such an expensive proposal to us?
The reason why for that would be deep reflection that the union did not listen to the opinions
of the trainees at all and focused on what the trainees’ company said.
The union acknowledged that it was acting ignoring human rights.
It is necessary to have procedures to condemn bad unions by accumulating these cases.
Four years have passed since I had received the case.
Also more than two years have passed since the trainees had returned their country.
We are finally getting settled and we are pleased to be able to report a good result for them.
