Organization for Workers' Retirement Allowance Mutual Aid

A public body the State sets up by law, as an incorporated administrative agency (独立行政法人), under the Small and Medium Sized Enterprise Retirement Allowance Cooperative Act (中小企業退職金共済法) and the Act on General Rules for Incorporated Administrative Agencies (独立行政法人通則法) (Article 57 of the Retirement Allowance Cooperative Act). Its purpose is to run the retirement allowance mutual aid scheme for the employees of small and medium-sized enterprises and to promote workers' planned asset formation (Article 58 of that Act). It carries on the business of retirement allowance mutual aid contracts (退職金共済契約) and of specified-industry retirement allowance mutual aid contracts (特定業種退職金共済契約), which cover industries the Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare designates, such as construction, where many workers move between employers in the same industry (Article 2, paragraph (4) and Article 70, paragraph (1) of that Act). Under a retirement allowance mutual aid contract, an employer promises to pay premiums to the Organization, and the Organization promises to pay retirement allowances, as that Act provides, when the employer's employees leave (Article 2, paragraph (3) of that Act).