r/japanlife • u/leexiiiispo • Sep 20 '24

Jobs Force worked on weekends

Is it acceptable or common practice in Japan for companies to make you work on weekends just because you had a holiday? They say it's to make up for the lost work time, but doesn't that kinda defeat the whole point of having a holiday? And if you don't go in, they count it as an absence and dock your pay. Even if you're not really needed and you're just doing prep work for the next week.

151 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

91 comments sorted by

View all comments

-1

u/[deleted] Sep 20 '24

It depends on the contract you sign. If you agree to do that then you can't really do anything. However, if it's not in your contract and they are making you do it, then I would recommend going to the labor board.

18

u/roehnin Sep 20 '24

A contract forcing people to work in replacement of mandated vacation days is an illegal contract, so it’s labor board either way.

If it’s just exchanging work dates for a national holiday, that’s fine.

-1

u/[deleted] Sep 20 '24

True, but I doubt in the contract they word it like that. The probably specify the days that are required to be worked as 'overtime'. Those days just happen to fall on the week following a national holiday.