Is my company stiffing me?

I'm not really sure what to do and I have no idea if what my company is doing is legal, so I decided to post my questions here.

I work for an eikaiwa (big surprise) and I put in my resignation notice today. I said I could work up to the 24th of September (with up to the 30th negotiable). My first day at this company was March 28th. We had a set holiday of two weeks (10 days) in August, but I have yet to be paid and they have told me that they aren't going to pay me for it because I have not worked for a full 6 months. I'm also a little concerned because of the school schedule - we didn't get regular national holidays. Are employees entitled to those as well as their 10 days of personal leave? In a previous and unrecorded conversation in July, my boss had mentioned the majority of my August leave was exchange days - time off for national holidays and overtime worked. The calendar I have does not reflect this, but adding up the off time does.

In addition to telling me that my August leave will be deducted, they attempted to have my final day be today and pushed very hard for this. They said they already had a replacement for me (I was shocked) and that they do not want to pay two salaries for the same job. I was able to argue for my final day to be the 17th and signed a resignation form for that date (which I'm not sure was wise of me without consulting others first).

So my main questions are:

1.) Is it legal for them to have pressured me into leaving sooner than I requested? I've never heard of this before. Another coworker who has also left said they did the same thing to her.

2.) Are national holidays included in the 10 personal leave days? Or are they considered separate?

Thank you for reading.

Generally (not specific to Japan):

Most contracts allow an employer to pay out termination - pay out, not cancel.

National holidays are not personal leave.

Tell them you are getting a lawyer to enforce your rights (a lawyer for this should not cost much).

generally speaking, the law says that you can't have paid holidays, if you don't work for the first 6 months.

your salary seems to be “ú‹‹ŒŽ‹‹. it means your salary is calculated by worked days, but is paid as a monthly salary.
if you don't work, no payment.

1) Never heard of it.
BTW, I guess it is not that they already "had" a replacement, but that they must have been interviewing here and there (just looking around) and must have said yes to one of them who happened to be interviewed recently. I assume they are always prepared for high turnover :(

2) No.

I assume what they are saying is that you get a certain number of annual leave (paid personal days of) for a whole year, and you need to work six months to be eligible (in the first year) to get a portion of it.

So for example if your annual leave is 14 days, you have to work for at least six months to be eligible for 8, 9 days in the first year, or something like that.

But putting that aside, if they had a period when the school was off to begin with, that should not be counted as part of your annual leave.

So if the company was off anyway, does that mean I'm still supposed to be paid? Or is it a loophole they're exploiting to give us our annual personal leave without actually giving it to us?

1) If your first day was March 28th, the company probably does not want you to work 6 months total, so I bet they pushed for you to leave as soon as possible. As others have said, usually you must work 6 full months to be "eligible" for time off. Just pressuring you isn't ILlegal, even if it is questionable. They don't want to fire you but they want you to leave, so they're going to pressure you to do so.

2) The August days are, as the company said, probably a combination of public holidays and days where students don't come anyway, so the company takes it off completely. Most dispatch companies and some eikaiwa have the policy that since there's no school/work during Obon, that's considered unpaid leave. You can't NOT take off because there is no work. This isn't (or shouldn't be) considered in your personal days, but they are also not public holidays. Its just a policy of the company. They don't have to pay you because, as they'd argue, the company is closed during that time. So they aren't required to pay you for that time.

You don't get your personal days because you haven't worked the full 6 months. Those days were when the company was closed, so is treated like unpaid leave, but say you stayed for your full 6 months, you'd still have your leave days to take.

This is more of a feedback than a response to your questions since all of them have been already answered.

In general, as foreigners living in Japan, we should not sign on any document or paper until we fully know its content. I always discuss with any Japanese trust the content of the document and see all best options before proceeding.

According to your description, it seems that you were somehow confused and unaware of the limits of your contract. I don't think you have any rights since you already accepted all what you stated in the paper you signed on.

You don't have other options to explore. You may need to go to a lawyer, this means spending time and money on a lost case. You can go to Hallo-work and ask them for advice. I am not sure if they can help you. But, for sure they will contact the company.

I think you better forget this negative experience and start looking for another job. These things happen a lot. There is no point looking backward.

I wish you all the best! Move forward!

I am officially concerned that I may not be compensated properly. In addition to having me work overtime this week, they've also sent me on a bunch of branch errands that has totaled 3720 for today alone. The paper I signed said that I would be paid in cash today for the end of my contract, but I was told earlier that it's not possible for the office staff to process same day payment (even though they knew I'd be paid today, since I signed this paper last week) and so I will need to come back next week.

Does this sound weird or am I just being paranoid?