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Nova handed suspension order over tuition fee practices

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The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry on Wednesday ordered major English-language school operator Nova Corp. to suspend part of its business operations for holding back money from students who cancelled their contracts, ministry officials said.

The ministry issued an order prohibiting Nova from soliciting customers or accepting applications for contracts exceeding one year or new contracts exceeding 70 hours. The suspension will be in place for six months.

It is the first time for the ministry to issue a business suspension order to an English language school under Japan’s special transaction law. People who are currently taking lessons at the language school will not be affected by the order.

Ministry officials explained Nova operates a system in which students buy points enabling them to take lessons. When they buy a large number of points in advance, they can take lessons at a cheaper price.

However, when people cancelled their contracts before finishing their courses, the company lowered the amount of lesson fees it returned to them. In addition the company didn’t inform people about the procedures for canceling contracts.

In April this year, the Supreme Court ruled that Nova’s policy of demanding penalties when students cancelled their contracts violated a law regulating commercial practices. It said the policy restricted students’ right to initiate the cancellation of their contracts, and ruled the practice invalid.

It has also emerged that the company prevented students from canceling their contracts under Japan’s “cooling off” law which states that people can cancel contracts without any obligation if they do so within eight days of forming the contract, by listing students’ contract day as the day they took tours of classes or received explanations about lessons.

Furthermore, when inviting students to take lessons, the company advertised that they could book lessons any time they wanted, but because of the difficulty in securing teachers, it remained difficult to make bookings. Because of this, the ministry reportedly decided to issue a business improvement order to the firm.

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government conducted an inspection of Nova in February in connection with the law regulating commercial practices. It found that several practices that violated the law had been ordered by the company’s general headquarters. The ministry said it judged the company’s practices to be “organized and malicious.”

Nova operates over 900 schools across Japan, and has about 480,000 students. Since 1996, the National Consumer Affairs Center of Japan has received over 7,000 complaints and inquiries about the company.

http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/national/news/20070613p2a00m0na015000c.html

Competing foreign-worker plans face off

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Justice chief’s proposal to open doors, briefly, for all sectors causes stir

“Putting a three-year limit on a foreign worker’s stay in Japan does not give the company doing the hiring any incentive to take the time to train them for specialized work. Of course, there is also the question of how many skilled workers would want to come to Japan if they are forced to leave after three years,” [Hidenori] Sakanaka [director of the NGO Japan Immigration Policy Institute and former head of the Tokyo Immigration Bureau] said.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20070607f1.html

Nambu teams with Zentoitsu to take on Sunrise and Yanagawa-Kogyo

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A delegation of six Nambu members joined approximately 50 Zentoitsu union members at a series of demos in eastern Tokyo this morning.

First stop was Sunrise, a small company that manufactures helmets, using trainees from China as a source of labour. The trainee/internship system has been in the news a lot
recently, due to abuses by companies who, instead of training the interns, force them to work long hours for less than minimum wage, with none of the benefits guaranteed to employees under Labour Standards Law.  In this case, five Chinese women who made a claim for unpaid wages were forcibly taken to Narita and put on a plane to China. Those who resisted were beaten. Today, union activists expressed their outrage to the owner of Sunrise, who found himself surrounded by angry protestors on the doorstep of his office, in full view of all the neighbours. The demonstration was very loud and tense, but very well-organized. The police at the nearby koban observed from a safe distance, clearly not wishing to get involved in that.
 
From there, we moved by hired bus (more excellent organization) to Adachi-ku, where we demonstrated in front of Yanagawa-Kogyo, a company which, among other things,
rents construction cranes, one of which was parked in the front lot. Protestors made their way around the construction material to the verandah of the home office, and chanted slogans through the open door, where the owner stood watching. This company dismissed a union member who had insisted on taking his legally-owed number of paid vacation days to deal with back pain brought on by the working conditions.

Coming out to these demos is a great way to build solidarity with our sister union Zentoitsu, and to learn about the conditions faced by other workers in Japan. Watch this space for information about future action.

May 25th Mini-Koudou Demos

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Rain or shine, Nambu members turn out when called, and more than 20 people participated throughout the day in the Mini-Koudou demos last Friday, May 25.

Action began with a multi-union demo in Kasumigaseki. Hundreds of unionists surrounded the Ministry buildings in support of dismissed JR workers who have been fighting for decades. Listening to the speakers, some of whom were on a hunger strike, suddenly the rain didn’t seem worth compaining about.

A highlight of the day was a visit to the offices of Universal Language Institute (ULI) where we declared a new branch. Management were more than a little surprised to find their office suddenly filled with a dozen union members, and demanded that we leave. Nambu President Hiraga refused, and insisted that ULI recognize the union and commit to negotiations with the new branch. After some debate, ULI management realized that it made more sense to recognize the union than to have a dozen activists occupying its offices and chatting about working conditions with other ULI staff, who in fact seemed to enjoy the diversion.

Later in the day, we returned again to the infamous [three lettered college in Shinjuku], where management has been trying to crush the union for two years now. Managers stood by scowling as students took our leaflets to read during their break. As for the non-union teachers who walked by the picket line, one of our members said it best by quoting Edmund Burke: “Evil triumphs when good men do nothing.”

Union-busting problems at a Berlitz franchise in Sapporo were brought home to Berlitz HQ in Aoyama, as leafletters informed passers-by about unfair labour practices going on under the Berlitz name. Demonstrations were also held in front of ELS, the Berlitz-affiliated company in Shinjuku that runs the Sapporo franchise. This demo was well-timed, just as ELS students and teachers were leaving the building, and all were curious to hear about what was happening up north.

By coordinating action, and working together to resolve disputes at other workplaces as well as our own, wemultiply our strength and solidarity. Watch for more Mini-Koudou in the future!

Reinstate the Sapporo Four!

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The fight against union busting at the Berlitz-ELS Sapporo Language Centre continues, with two demonstrations held recently in Sapporo and Tokyo.

In Sapporo, union members leafletted in front of the Berlitz-ELS LC on March 12. The union continues to receive strong support, with a new member joining the original Four, and students as well as members of the local Sapporo Rentai union helping to hand out flyers. The public is obviously reading the flyers, as we have received phone calls to the office in Tokyo from students concerned about the situation.

In Tokyo, union members gathered in front of the ELS school in Shinjuku, and distributed about 300 leaflets. Even without a loudspeaker, the colourful placards and energetic chanting of the protestors convinced the passers-by that something was definitely amiss with the company on the 7th floor. More than half the participants were from Berlitz and Simul, who, along with ELS, are Benesse group companies.                                

Background:

Union members at the Berlitz-ELS Sapporo LC are fighting unfair dismissals and union-busting at ELS Japan. ELS denies that the dismissals targeted union members, but cannot explain why out of 17 teachers, only the four union members were fired, less than two months after their first collective bargaining to boot. Unsubstantiated claims of “poor performance” don’t stand up against years of experience, good evaluations, and petitions from students to bring these teachers back to work. 

The real reason may lie in changes to contracts introduced unilaterally this April, as teachers said good-bye to benefits such as paid national holidays and prep time for kids’s lessons.

This unfair labour practice is going on literally under the names of Berlitz and Benesse, which adorn the entrance to the school in Sapporo. ELS took over the Sapporo LC in 2006, but retained the Berlitz operation in a “double-branding” agreement with Berlitz Japan.

Court invalidates sacking of Japanese-Brazilian who called boss ‘idiot’

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The Nagoya District Court on Wednesday invalidated a company’s sacking of a third-generation Japanese-Brazilian who called his boss an idiot, saying the company had abused its right of dismissal.Ruling in favor of the 35-year-old worker, the court said sacking the worker for calling his boss an idiot was unacceptable.

“The firing is not acceptable under current social standards, and it was an abuse of the right of dismissal,” Judge Toshiro Tamiya said as the ruling was handed down.

http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/national/news/20070509p2a00m0na022000c.html

Overtime or the cure — which is worse?

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According to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, the average full-time employee worked 2,041.2 hours in 2006, compared with 2,028 hours the previous year. Another government survey shows that one out of every four male employees in their 30s worked more than 60 hours a week in 2005. No job category breakdown was provided.

In 2003, a worker in the manufacturing sector in Japan worked on average 1,975 hours, compared with 1,525 hours in Germany and 1,538 hours in France. Closer to Japan, but still lower, was the United States at 1,929 and Britain at 1,888.

To deal with the high overtime rate, the government prepared a revision to the Labor Standards Law to increase pay for such work.

However, it also wrote another bill to exclude senior white-collar employees from overtime pay, the so-called white-collar exclusion. Management ranks are already excluded from overtime pay.

Strong public opposition to the exclusion forced the ruling bloc — the Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito — to shelve the bill. But labor experts and unions fear it is only being held back so it won’t affect the bloc’s chances in the July House of Councilors election, and that after the poll they will submit it to the Diet.

“The issue will definitely come up again,” labor lawyer Ichiro Natsume said. “We must work harder to make the government give up the bill completely.”

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20070406f1.html

Nova’s policy on cancellations illegal: top court

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The Ministry of Economy Trace and Industry and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government inspected Nova’s Osaka head office and several schools in February for allegedly charging high contract cancellation fees and on suspicion that it had given the government false information about its cancellation policy.

At that time, the government warned Nova it could be forbidden from enrolling new students if officials found clear evidence of more legal violations.

At least eight lawsuits have been filed against Nova to get the company to pay refunds, and the rulings have all favored the plaintiffs, according to the plaintiff’s lawyer in Tuesday’s case.

In one of the cases, a woman argued that the information Nova provided about its cancellation policy was insufficient, claiming it was written in tiny characters in hard-to-understand language in the contract.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20070404a1.html

Top court rules Nova policy illegal / School must fully refund cancelers

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The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that major English school Nova Corp.’s method of settling early cancellations of its courses by using a higher unit price than when the contract was signed is illegal and violated the Specified Commercial Transaction Law.

The ruling followed a case brought by a 39-year-old man from Kita Ward, Tokyo, who tried to cancel a contract and demanded the company refund the 310,000 yen he said he was owed for classes he had not taken.

Presiding Justice Kohei Nasu ruled it is illegal to settle a contract by charging more for each unit taken than was agreed on when the contract was signed. He dismissed the appeal by Nova, and upheld and finalized the first and second rulings ordering the return of all the money demanded.

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20070404TDY01004.htm

Top court: Nova’s refund tactic illegal

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The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected an appeal filed by Nova Corp., saying the refund system of the nation’s largest English conversation school is invalid and violates the specified commercial transaction law.

The decision finalized the rulings of two lower courts that ordered Nova to refund about 310,000 yen to a former student, the full amount he was seeking.

http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200704040097.html