My name is Erich and I am a member of Nambu FWC, a former member and a current friend of the Osaka based General Union. I joined the GU a few years ago to improve the working conditions in the city that I lived and worked, Matsubara, Osaka. We in the GU were able to convince/force/persuade the BOE (Board of Education) of Matsubara to hire their ALTs directly, thus improving the working conditions by orders of magnitude. The GU was able to put pressure on other BOEs where our members chose to fight as well, and they were recently able to liberate the city of Hirakata, improving the working conditions
The GU was also able to force Interac to enroll me into unemployment insurance, in spite of their best legal efforts to thwart the effort. This will be documented as well to highlight how a company can fight so hard against simple requests to grant a worker their rights afforded to them under the law.
The Interac branch of Nambu is going to be posting a how-to symposium on:
1) improving your working conditions within Interac and,
2) when Interac is not willing to allow conditions to be improved, removing them from the equation altogether and pushing the BOE to hire directly.
I have found that sometimes a public embarrassment can cause a company to change for the better, so we will be publishing stories of things that a company should be shamed for doing. Likewise, we will offer praise and credit when we see that it is due.
We will also be publishing highlighting news published in newspapers around Japan that effect the ALTs of Japan. Much of this will be cross posted on the upcoming Nambu FWC ALT branch website as well.
I hope you find the information here to be helpful, and I hope that you will join us in our continuing struggle to change the ALT industry for the better.
Solidarity
Erich