From our other sites
The story
It has come to light that a company operating the ramen chain “Mitsuyado Seimen” in Tokyo unilaterally deducted the deposit and key money for company housing from the wages of a 30-year-old Myanmar woman working under the Specified Skilled Worker (Tokutei Ginō) visa status, leaving her effective first paycheck at zero yen. The woman filed suit seeking about 1.7 million yen in unpaid wages and other compensation, and on September 11 the Tokyo District Court ruled that the deductions violated the Labor Standards Act, ordering the company to pay roughly 1 million yen. On 5ch, users expressed surprise that the company chose to fight the case all the way to a ruling, and debated who should really bear the cost of housing for foreign workers.
Illegal Deduction from Specified Skilled Worker’s Pay: Tokyo District Court Orders Ramen Chain to Pay | Mainichi Shimbun
September 11, 2026, 13:15 (Last updated September 11, 20:54)
In a lawsuit brought by a 30-year-old Myanmar woman who worked at the ramen chain “Mitsuyado Seimen” under the Specified Skilled Worker visa status — who sought roughly 1.7 million yen in unpaid wages and other compensation from the Tokyo-based operating company, saying illegal deductions had left her first paycheck at “zero yen” — the Tokyo District Court ruled on the 11th that the company must pay about 1 million yen. The court found that unilaterally deducting upfront costs such as the deposit and key money for company housing from her wages violated the Labor Standards Act.
Source: mainichi.jp / Original article here
What people said
That's rough, even by low standards.
This one's
a disgrace to Japan.
Stuff like this is exactly why Japan's going downhill.
The fact it went all the way to trial means they actually meant to fight it — what idiots.
They zero out her living costs and then demand she move out —
probably the plan is to pocket the subsidy and force her to 'quit voluntarily' within 3 months.
This is common with shady landlords —
pen workers up in a dorm, work them from dawn till midnight, then bill anyone who quits for the rent.
Exactly right —
the proper way is to squeeze someone dry down to the marrow.
Isn't this part-timer-level work??
Draining the noodle water, maybe? (a basic kitchen task, 'yugiri')
means this ramen chain actually fought back after pulling this stunt.
Unreal.
Which ramen chain is this again?
Right, if I were their lawyer I'd tell them to pay up big and settle —
once this goes public their brand image is going to hit rock bottom.
This isn't a noodle-making plant —
it's the ramen chain that blew up for its tsukemen (dipping noodles).
Couldn't they just handle it with a loan or something?
In the end they're just passing the cost along anyway.
But hold on — isn't the company supposed to arrange housing for foreign trainees? So why deposit and key money at all?
Yeah, they should be charging 2,000 yen for bacteria-contaminated crab ramen at the very least!
Everyone should keep suing and collecting damages.
Don't know how it actually turned out, but
I know of a company that rented an apartment for a worker, and the guy smashed windows and put holes in the walls, trashing the place way beyond what the deposit could cover —
and he was trying to just move out without fixing any of it.
is probably only capable of making so-so ramen and only draws so-so customers.
Once you get yourself a foreign 'slave,' cheap eateries like this start turning a profit.
Some places even have a single foreign worker running the whole shop solo.
Not sure about the appliances either, since I don't know if she bought those herself because she wanted them.
I doubt he even knows about any of that.
Staffing agencies just call up saying 'you can use them cheap on a day rate' and that's the whole pitch.
And it's not just this ramen chain — honestly, everywhere's probably doing something similar.
Exactly, there's plenty of manpower.
What's actually lacking is slaves willing to work like draft horses in a black-company environment (lol).
Probably true, but don't they realize how bad this looks?
If anything, I think messing with technical intern trainees is riskier than with Japanese employees.
Japanese workers tend to just swallow it even when there's a labor law violation,
but with trainees, if they run to a support organization, the company gets absolutely wrecked.
That's easily enough money to have hired a Japanese worker instead.
That's because hiring one foreign worker gets you an 80,000-yen subsidy every month.
Background and Key Points of This Story
The Specified Skilled Worker (Tokutei Ginō) status, introduced in 2019, is a visa category that lets fields facing severe labor shortages bring in foreign workers who are ready to contribute immediately. Unlike the Technical Intern Training Program, it allows workers to change jobs within the same field, and has generally been seen as offering stronger worker protections than technical internships. Under the Labor Standards Act, wages must in principle be paid in full, and deducting costs such as company housing fees requires a labor-management agreement — without one, such deductions are illegal. In the thread, almost no one defended the company’s conduct; attention centered on who should really bear housing costs and whether similar practices exist at other workplaces, though some posts also conflated the Technical Intern Training Program with the Specified Skilled Worker system.
*This article was compiled by excerpting and summarizing the 5ch (News Express+) thread “First Paycheck Hits ‘Zero Yen’… Illegal Deduction from Specified Skilled Worker’s Pay: Tokyo District Court Orders Ramen Chain to Pay.”
Leave a Reply