TozenAdmin On Saturday 25th September 2021, Tozen’s local, Begunto held a leafleting action in Nihonbashi.
Begunto recently entered into a dispute, and members are fighting for the reinstatement of our member Matt Wiegand.
2021年09月25日(土)、日本橋で東ゼン労組のベグント支部はビラを配った。
最近、ベグント支部は労働紛争に入って、 マット組合員の復職を求めて闘っている。
(English below the French)
Le 27 septembre, un tribunal spécial du travail (rodo shimpan) a ordonné au Lycée Français international de Tokyo de verser le montant les heures supplémentaires non payées à Amjid Alam, président de l’Union des Personnels du Lycée Français international de Tokyo (UPL) de Tozen Union.
L’école française a deux semaines pour faire appel de la décision auprès du tribunal du district de Tokyo.
Notre correspondant juridique Tozen News a rencontré Alam dans le hall du bâtiment du tribunal, juste après la victoire.
“Ma demande était justifiée. La loi japonaise doit être respectée. Je ne dirais pas que c’est une victoire, car tout ce que cela signifie, c’est que l’école doit respecter le droit du travail local. C’est quelque chose qui aurait dû être fait dès le début”.
(Nous mettrons cette page à jour si la direction décide de faire appel).
From the Begunto Website:
On September 14th Begunto entered dispute after weeks of negotiations that went nowhere. On September 16th we had our first striking member. The purpose of the strike is to realize the Union’s demand that our member, Matthew Wiegand, be reinstated in his job. We aim to protect members against unfair dismissals.
A message from Tozen Union President, Okunuki Hifumi, (16 September 2021):
Today, 13 years after its founding and now part of Tozen Union, our local Begunto has begun a new fight – this time not for more money but rather to protect the job of one of our members. At 7:40 pm this evening, our member Yancey walked off the job – on strike to push Berlitz management to reinstate our member Matt Wiegand.
Begunto (Berlitz General Union Tokyo) has a history going back to 1994, the year of its founding (then part of NUGW Tokyo Nambu). Over the next 27 years, Begunto has blazed a wide trail for language teachers in Japan, with enormous victories that changed the language school industry. In 2007, the union launched an intense, twelve-month strike to raise wages across the board by 4.6%, something unheard of among any teacher unions, let alone one with mostly foreign teachers. Berlitz Japan made two offers, but Begunto rejected them as too little. (See the wikipedia entry for this historic strike)
This fight is Tozen Union’s fight as much as Begunto’s fight. We will fight together to protect all our members’ job from reckless firings like this one. We will update you on events that all Tozen members can join to help us win.
In solidarity,
Hifumi Okunuki
Tozen Union Executive President
Tozen Senior Organiser, Louis Carlet gives us a bare-bones basics look at some of Japanese Trade Union Law, with a focus on Articles 7 and 8.
奥貫妃文の詩。
A poem by Hifumi Okunuki.
(English is below the Japanese.)
いまは、いったいいつなんだろう。
ここは、いったいどこなんだろう。
東京都新宿区、奥神楽坂の我が家から歩いて3分。
中国人のジャンさんが営む中華料理レストランがあった。
私と夫は頻繁に通っては、裏メニュー「黒酢きゅうり」を頼んでいた。
2021年8月の現在、その店は、もうない。
夜遅くまで客足が絶えず、楽し気な声で満ちていた店は、真っ暗なまま。
がらんどうになった店の入口は、落ち葉の吹き溜まりになっている。
壁には「テナント募集」の張り紙。それもすっかり色褪せ、
今にもはがれそうにカサカサ、カサカサ、と音を立てている。
新しい賃借人が入るのは、いつのことになるだろうか。
On Friday 30th July 2021, members of Tozen held a candle-lit online protest calling for the cancellation of the Tokyo Olympics.
SNA (Tokyo) — On July 1, the US State Department cited Attorney Shoichi Ibuski as one of seven heroes in its 2021 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report for his long years of work fighting for the rights of foreign workers caught up in Japan’s technical intern program.
The TIP report explained how domestic and overseas brokers continue to abuse this system, ostensibly to provide technical training to those from poorer countries, to exploit foreign workers. It went on to condemn the Japanese government for lacking the political will to investigate the system’s victims and provided them real protection.
SNA (Tokyo) — During a May 30 demonstration in front of central Tokyo’s JR Takadanobaba Station, my labor union, Tozen Union, called upon the Japanese government to overhaul its immigration system and to protect the human rights of foreigners.
We persisted despite a heavy downpour, joined by the two younger sisters of Wishma Sandamali, a 33-year-old Sri Lankan woman who died after medical neglect in a Nagoya immigration detention center.
Wayomi Rathnayake called on the Immigration Bureau to release all video, documents, and information related to her sister’s death. Japan’s immigration bureaucracy has a history of opacity and arbitrary treatment of foreigners. We demanded that the government guarantee foreigners’ right to life, regardless of visa status. We must not accept valuing some lives less than others, due to flukes of fate that determine citizenship and residence status.
Tokyo Labor Relations Commission began hearings on Monday, May 24 against Tokyo West International School. On April 1, 2021, Tozen Union and its local TWIST had filed a petition claiming that the school targeted the union in an attempt to weaken or destroy it, including unfair dismissals of three union teachers.
Union members expressed excitement to get the proceedings under way but were bewildered at claims made in the school’s defense brief that they had never before heard.
2021年5月24日(月)、東京都労働委員会において、東京ウエストインターナショナルスクールを相手にした不当労働行為の第１回調査期日が行われた。2021年4月1日、東ゼン労組と東京ウエストインターナショナルスクール東ゼン（略称「TWIST」）は、同学校による３名の組合員講師に対する不当解雇を含めて、組合員を狙って組合を弱体化しようとしたという主張を理由に不当労働行為の救済を申し立てた。
組合員らは調査開始に対して喜びを見せたが、学校側から届いた大量の証拠資料の中には、これまで耳にしたことのない主張が含まれていたことに驚いた。
