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Yakuza nabbed for confining disgraced ex-president of NOVA in hotel room

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Several men including a yakuza member have been arrested for confining the former president of failed English conversation school Nova for several days in a hotel room, police said. The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) arrested several men on Monday, including a member from a gang related to the Yamaguchi-gumi criminal syndicate, on suspicion of confining former Nova President Nozomu Sahashi, 58, in a hotel room in Tokyo’s Chuo Ward.

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/national/archive/news/2009/09/29/20090929p2a00m0na011000c.html

Ozawa positive about granting local voting rights to non-Japanese

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Democratic Party of Japan Secretary General Ichiro Ozawa says he will try to take the issue of giving foreigners local voting rights to next year’s regular Diet session.

In a meeting with South Korean lawmaker Lee Sang Deuk in Tokyo on Saturday, Ozawa told Lee he favors granting local suffrage to permanent residents of Japan, including South Koreans, participants said.

“I want it to take form somehow during the regular Diet session,” Ozawa was quoted as saying, suggesting he intends to compile the opinions of DPJ members during the session.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20090922a6.html

Interac and Pregnancy: Getting Fired for Being Pregnant

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Last year when I was in the Osaka based General Union, we received an email from an Interac ALT who was rather upset because she had been fired for being pregnant. Martina (name changed) was set to have her contract renewed with her school where she was loved by her students and teachers. Her contract had already been promised to her verbally and her schools and students were looking forward to her return. Then, people in the Yokohama office found out something that they viewed as a major inconvenience to their business, Martina was pregnant and would be giving birth during the middle of the school year.

They told her that in light of her condition, it would be too much trouble for them to find a replacement in the middle of the school term, and had decided to go with someone else who was less…. pregnant.

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New law: no dues, no visa

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An article from July that concerns every foreigner working in Japan.

Are you enrolled in Shakai Hoken or did Interac tell you you weren’t eligible? Are you going to have to pay up to two years of back pay into the system next year because Interac/Maxceed did not register you into the system when you started working for them?

Let’s hope not.
Solidarity

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20090728zg.html
By JENNY UECHI

Enrollment in Japan’s health insurance program tied to visa renewal from 2010

By JENNY UECHI

In your wallet or somewhere at home, do you have a blue or pink card showing that you are enrolled in one of Japan’s national health and pension programs? If not, and if you are thinking of extending your stay here, you may want to think about a recent revision to visa requirements for foreign residents. The changes, which the Justice Ministry says were made in order to “smooth out the administrative process,” may have major consequences for foreign residents and their future in Japan.

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Few answers for language market

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Japan’s language-related business sales have been on the decline, falling for the fourth straight in year in fiscal 2008, according to a market research firm.

English-language schools, the largest segment of the language market, admit they are hurting from a decline in adult classes and blame the sluggish economy and the fallout from the Nova Corp. bankruptcy.

Susumu Ikegami [a corporate spokesman for Geos] said the market’s downward trend began about five years ago, although the reason is hard to pinpoint. However, he pointed out that the bankruptcy of Nova Corp. in October 2007 had some impact.

“Nova, which was the largest language school, caused distrust among the public about English-language schools,” he said.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20090916f1.html

Liberation In Iwate

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In 2007, I recieved an email from an Interac employee that was interested in being directly hired by his BOE. He had tried in earnest to improve his working conditions through Interac, but they were uninterested in signing him up for Shakai Hoken, unemployment insurance, giving him a raise, etcetera. At the time I was in Osaka, and Iwate (the prefecture north of Tokyo, not the city in Osaka) is quite a long way away from the normal base of operations of Tokyo Nambu, much less Osaka’s General Union Interac Branch. I was not able to meet with him face to face, but I was able to provide him with a lot of information and advice that he was able to use to convince his BOE (Board of Education) that taking the plunge to hire him directly would be in everyone’s best interest. He has now been directly employed since spring of 2008 with no middle-man dispatch company to impede his rights as a worker under Japanese law.

This is his story, in his own words. Enjoy and be inspired. Any other ALTs in Iwate prefecture that want to liberate their BOE from their dispatch company can contact me and I will put you in contact with our friend, “The Abolitionist”.

In solidarity

(NOTE: His experiences and his claims may not match yours exactly. Contracts can have different variables in different parts of the country. They can even be different in the same part of the country, but with different BOEs. If his experience does not match yours exactly, don’t forget to take the possible variations into account.)

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From “The Abolitionist” in Iwate Prefecture:

It would be very sad for you, a great ALT, to resign to quitting your job and even leaving Japan, a country you love, because of Interac. Giving that much power to an amoral, impersonal business would indeed be a shame. That’s why I’m writing this. It’s not hopeless. A few years ago I was in this situation but my BOE cut out the middleman and gave me a direct contract. I would like to give you some tips on how to make this happen.

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Stop Illegal Dispatching in Tokyo/Kanto!

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Recently in the news, an NihonTerebi (Channel 4 in the Tokyo area) story focused on trials that a lot of ALTs face, focusing on the fact that not only are these creating a less than optimal working enviornment for foreign teachers but also that many of the contracts are Illegal.

The reporters that researched the story surveyed the greater Tokyo/Kanto area to see which Boards of Education (BOEs) were using dispatch contracts that are considered legal, and which BOEs were using illegal contracts. A graphic supplied during the report showed that a large swath of the Tokyo area was highlighted in red, the color used to indicate a BOE that is currently using an illegal contract.

Continue reading to see the videos:

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Nova ruling puts spotlight on Japan’s consumer affairs

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Nozomu Sahashi, the former president of collapsed English language school operator Nova, was recently handed a three-year six month prison sentence in a ruling at the Osaka District Court.

Sahashi was convicted of embezzlement in the conduct of business, by misappropriating money from an employees’ fund to cover payments for cancelled contracts. Nova had collected some 56 billion yen in advance from around 300,000 students, in one of the biggest cases of consumer damage in Japan’s postwar history.

The former president has no assets, and even if bankruptcy proceeding are undertaken, there appears to be no prospect of students having their lesson fees returned. The fact that relief from the damage cannot be obtained by pursuing the criminal responsibility of the company’s operator is a consumer problem — and a governmental lapse.

If Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, which has jurisdiction over the industry, had taken a more serious view of the problem of canceled contracts and had quickly issued an administrative order against Nova, it is possible the damage could have been reduced. However, the ministry, the government body responsible for nurturing industry, was not greatly concerned with the damage caused to consumers and left the problem unaddressed.

The imminent formation of a consumer agency is based on reflection on this kind of problem. The agency is designed to be a kind of consumer administration control tower, intended to aggregate information on consumer problems like fraudulent sales methods and accidents involving common products — such as the carbon monoxide poisonings caused by water heaters produced by Paloma — and solve these issues.

The National Consumer Affairs Center of Japan had received complaints from students about Nova’s handling of cancelled contracts, such as its lowering of the amount of lesson fees returned, for more than a decade. In 2002, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government issued an administrative order to the company, but the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry sided with Nova’s claim that cancellation of contracts was made at the convenience of consumers. This effectively gave Nova an official stamp of approval and the company expanded its business while receiving lesson fees in advance without taking profit into consideration.

Later, the company was hit with a succession of lawsuits from students who demanded the return of their lesson fees. In April 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that provisions demanding heavy compensation for terminated contracts are invalid.

Just before the ruling, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry had finally carried out a spot inspection at Nova on suspicion that the company was violating the Specified Commercial Transaction Law. In June 2007, the ministry judged that Nova had violated 18 provisions of the law, which pertain to procedures for cancelled contracts, and issued a business suspension order against the company. The move was an echo of the judicial decision.

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/perspectives/news/20090828p2a00m0na017000c.html

Court reverses ruling on housing renewal fees

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The Osaka High Court has ordered the landlord of an apartment building in Kyoto to return lease renewal fees paid by a former tenant, reversing a lower court decision.

In the lawsuit, the 54-year-old male company employee of Kyoto had asked the landlord to return about 550,000 yen, claiming he had paid the money according to a clause in his rental contract that he now believed violated the consumer contract law.

In Thursday’s ruling, presiding Judge Kitaru Narita stated that the clause unilaterally undermines the interests of consumers and therefore is void under the consumer contract law.

The judge ordered the landlord to return about 450,000 yen to the man.

The ruling reversed a Kyoto District Court decision given in January last year dismissing the man’s request that the money be returned.

The landlord plans to appeal.

Four similar rulings over renewal fees have so far been handed down at district courts in Tokyo, Kyoto and other places.

While tenants lost in three of the four rulings, the Kyoto District Court in July became the first district court to rule in favor of a tenant in the cases.

Thursday’s ruling was the first of its kind given by a high court.

According to the ruling, the man signed a contract in 2000 to pay 45,000 yen in monthly rent and an annual renewal fee of 100,000 yen.

He paid the renewal fees five times until August 2005, and he moved out in November 2006. He filed the lawsuit in 2007.

The first ruling regarded the fees as advance rental payments. However, the judge at the high court said the amount was unreasonably high for an advance payment.

The judge also said the Land and House Lease Law stipulates that landlords cannot refuse to renew a contract without sufficient cause, but that the landlord had demanded the tenant pay the contract renewal fees without any explanation.

The judge further said it could be presumed the landlord had given the tenant the impression that his monthly payment was low by collecting renewal fees, leading him to renew the contracts.

The judge then ordered the landlord to reimburse the total amount of the renewal fees the tenant had paid since the revised consumer contract law was put into effect in 2001, as well as a deposit he paid when he first entered the apartment after deducting his unpaid rent from it.

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20090829TDY02305.htm

Court negates renewal fees

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The high court here Thursday ordered a landlord to return money to a tenant who paid a fee when renewing his apartment contract, overturning a lower court decision.

The ruling was the first by a high court and follows a landmark ruling in July by the Kyoto District Court which also invalidated the contract renewal fee.

The plaintiff in the latest case had sought the return of about 550,000 yen in contract renewal and other fees.

The Kyoto District Court in January 2008 ruled against the man, but the Osaka High Court overturned the decision and ordered the landlord to return 450,000 yen.

http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200908280075.html