Attorney Kinoshita Tetsuro talks us through various changes to the work hour system.
木下徹郎弁護士によるに労働時間制度の様々な変更点について。
TozenAdmin
Important Message to All ALC Teachers on a GM Contract.
TO ALL ALC STAFF ON A GM CONTRACT
On August 3rd, ALC management announced that it is proposing new contracts to its employees on GM contracts. They have proposed two options.
Be aware that this is only a proposal and that management cannot force you to change your contract. You have the right to refuse this proposal and keep your current contract.
Before you take any action yourself, please contact Gerome Rothman, case officer of the Tozen ALC Local Union at the following email address. All contacts and consultations are confidential.
tozen.rothman@gmail.com
アルクエデュケーションのGM講師の皆様へ
2022年8 月 3 日、 アルクエデュケーションのGM講師 に対し、2種類の新規契約(案)を提示しました。これは、あくまでも提案です。 経営側は、GM講師の合意を強制することはできません。GM講師は、同提案を受け入れない権利があり、受け入れない場合、現在の契約を続けます。
ご自身で何か行動を起こす前に、東ゼン労組ALC支部の担当者ジェローム・ロスマンまで以下のメールアドレスでご連絡ください。
Tozen organiser interviewed by scientific journal, Nature
In the article ‘I feel disposable’: Thousands of scientists’ jobs at risk in Japan, about universities terminating workers on fixed-term contracts, Tozen organiser Louis Carlet was interviewed and gave an explanation on how universities have responded to the 5/10-year rule.
Read the full article here
Bread & Roses 「同一労働同一賃金」―裁判所はどう判断している? Japan’s same-work-same-pay law fails to live up to its promise
Many laud Article 8 of the brand new Part-time/Fixed-term Employment Act as Japan finally recognizing the principle of same-work-same-pay. But one word in that article gave me pause: unreasonable.
The Part-time/Fixed-term Employment Act (enacted in April 2020 for regular firms and small businesses a year later), prohibits unreasonable treatment of employees on regular and irregular/contingent contracts. Article 8 stipulates, “The employer must not create a disparity that could be deemed unreasonable between the base pay, bonus and other conditions of short-term/fixed-term employees and ordinary employees, with due consideration to what could be deemed appropriate in light of the nature and purpose of the compensation as well as the details of the operations the worker is involved, the degree of corresponding responsibility, the details of the work duties, the potential for job changes of the two groups of employees and other circumstances. (Emphasis mine.)”
Disparities between contingent and regular employees are forbidden if they are unreasonable. Does that mean that reasonable disparities are fine? Let’s see what the courts are up to on this front.
May 27, 2022, Interac Protest
Our campaign to improve working conditions at Interac is important not just for ALTs , but for students and Japan’s education system. In addition, this has now become a campaign to defend our right to strike at Interac.

東ゼン大学 – 契約形態でやられちゃった。Tozen Daigaku – Work contracts, and how companies screw you.
Tozen’s Louis Carlet delves into different types of Labour contracts, and discusses their pros and cons.
講師: ルイス・カーレットとオレン・フランクハム
Presented by Louis Carlet and Orren Frankham
反戦メーデーデモ Anti-war May Day demo
東ゼン労組の組合員は東部労組の反戦メーデーデモに参加しました。
Tozen members attended Tobu Rosou’s Anti-War May Day demonstration.
Apple Japan労組の2022年要求
最近、世界中のアップルリテールスタッフは労働者の団結権を行使しています。2014年から日本でアップルジャパンの社員は全国一般東京ゼネラルユニオン(東ゼン労組)の支部を結成しました。労働者は経営者と団体交渉しています。組合に加盟して、組合員の仲間と一緒に経営側と交渉することによってアップルジャパンの職場をより良くしましょう。
アップルジャパンの従業員が結成された組合の正式名は:
The official name of the union established by Apple retail workers is:
全国一般東京ゼネラルユニオンアップルジャパン支部
Zenkoku Ippan Tokyo General Union Apple Japan Local
組合の通称は:
Our nickname is:
アップルジャパンホームインポルーブメントチーム(家の修繕チーム)
Apple Japan’s Home Improvement Team
支部は東ゼン労組に所属しています。
Our local is part of Tozen Union.
正式に東ゼン労組は、連合東京に加盟しています。
Tozen Union is officially a part of Rengo Tokyo.
なお、AppleTogetherという世界の連帯組合組織にも加盟しています。
ご興味のあるスタッフ(AHAも修理デポも含み)を募集しております。詳しくは
apple@tozenunion.org
に気軽にご連絡下さい。
現在の要求(2022年)
Current demands for 2022
Bread & Roses: Do sex workers really have a choice?

On March 30, 2022, NHK Web News ran a story on how women driven to financial hardship due to the corona pandemic are increasingly turning to sex work. (https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20220330/k10013558231000.html)
The report notes that sex workers’ “growing presence in busy urban neighborhoods has spurred police to take enforcement action but also to assign case officers to provide support and to accompany the arrested women to life consultant centers run by local governments.” The cops have begun to provide support for the women’s futures from a social welfare perspective, rather than just cracking down.
Bread & Roses: Tragedy and Prison for a Pregnant Foreign Intern
In August 2018 at the age of 19, Le Thi Thuy Linh arrived in Japan to work as a jisshusei intern. Each day, she handled agricultural wastewater at a tangerine orchard in Kumamoto Prefecture. Japan’s rapidly ageing population has created a dearth of agricultural workers, forcing farmers to turn to young foreign interns like Linh to maintain their farms.