Director of a labor standards inspection office

The head of a labor standards inspection office (労働基準監督署), one of the offices under each prefectural labor bureau (都道府県労働局) that carry out the Labor Standards Act (Labor Standards Act, Article 97, paragraph (1), and Article 99, paragraph (2)). The director is appointed from among labor standards inspectors (Article 97, paragraph (2)) and, directed and supervised by the director of the prefectural labor bureau (都道府県労働局長), administers the inspections (臨検), questioning (尋問), approvals (許可), investigations (審査) and other matters of carrying out that Act, and directs and supervises the office's staff (Article 99, paragraphs (2) and (3)). Under the Act on Ensuring Wage Payment, where an employer holds its workers' savings as deposits but has not taken the measures to protect them that Article 3 requires (保全措置), the director can order it to put that right by a deadline the director sets (Act on Ensuring Wage Payment, Articles 3 and 4). For the workers a Ministerial Order (厚生労働省令) names, the director confirms the amount of their unpaid wages and other matters before the government pays part of those wages in the employer's place (Article 7), and may send staff into the employer's workplace to question people and inspect books and documents to make that confirmation (Article 13, paragraph (2)). The director is also one of the officials a worker can report the employer's violations to (Article 14, paragraph (1)).