After 20 months of legal wrangling, neither side has managed to snag a win in Berlitz Japan‘s ¥110 million lawsuit against five teachers and their union, Begunto.
On the recommendation of the case’s lead judge, the company and union have been in court-mediated reconciliation talks since December. The agreement to enter the talks came after a year of court hearings into the suit.
“The vast, vast majority of cases (in Japan) are decided out of court, and that’s the way the whole thing is designed,” explains lawyer Timothy Langley, president of Langley Enterprise K.K., a consultancy specializing in labor issues. “It works even though it’s frustrating; people eventually define the solution themselves.”
Louis Carlet, one of the union officials being sued, describes progress at the once-a-month, 30-minute negotiating sessions as “glacially slow.”
It will be up to the judge to decide how long to let this process play out, says Tadashi Hanami, professor emeritus at Sophia University and former chair of the Central Labor Relations Commission. “Talks for the purpose of conciliatory settlement will continue as long as the judge finds there is a possibility for settlement by compromise.”
The current focus of negotiations is the amount of notice union members should give the company ahead of industrial action. Initially, Berlitz Japan offered to drop their lawsuit if teachers gave a week’s notice before striking. Begunto proposed five minutes. Since teachers typically only learn the next day’s schedule the night before, the judge instructed the company to come up with a better offer.
Asked how much notice unions legally have to give before striking, Langley replied, “None. Zero. That’s one of the beauties of a strike: You just strike.”
In the latest round of talks held Thursday, Berlitz Japan requested contract teachers give strike notification by 3 p.m. the day before, and per-lesson teachers by 5 p.m. Begunto pointed out to the judge that per-lesson teachers don’t receive their schedule until 6 p.m. the day before. Union executives have taken the offer back to members for consideration.
The battle between Berlitz Japan and Begunto began with a strike launched Dec. 13, 2007, as Berlitz Japan and its parent company, Benesse Corp., were enjoying record profits. Teachers, who had gone without an across-the-board raise for 16 years, struck for a 4.6-percent pay hike and a one-month bonus. The action grew into the largest sustained strike in the history of Japan’s language school industry, with more than 100 English, Spanish and French teachers participating in walkouts across Kanto.
On Dec. 3, 2008, Berlitz Japan claimed the strike was illegal and sued for a total of ¥110 million in damages. Named in the suit were the five teachers volunteering as Begunto executives, as well as two union officials: the president of the National Union of General Workers Tokyo Nambu, Yujiro Hiraga , and Carlet, former NUGW case officer for Begunto and currently executive president of Zenkoku Ippan Tokyo General Union (Tozen).
While believing their strike to be legal, Begunto decided to suspend industrial action until the lawsuit is settled rather than risk the dismissal of union members. However, the company fired two of the teachers it’s suing anyway.
One, who didn’t want to be named, received word of his dismissal just before shipping out to Afghanistan as a U.S. Army reservist at the end of July 2009. Berlitz Japan had allowed the teacher to take unpaid leave for military duty several times before the strike. But after being the only teacher at his Yokohama branch to walk out, he began getting complaints from students.
According to Begunto members, after being ordered to deploy to Afghanistan, Berlitz Japan told the teacher he could take a leave of absence of less than a year, and that he’d have to quit if he needed more than a year. Two days before he left for Afghanistan the company fired him. According to the dismissal letter, his performance was subpar and was hurting the company’s image.
“The union believes strongly that the teacher’s dismissal was because he was the only striker at Yokohama,” says Carlet.
Another of the teachers named in the suit, Catherine Campbell, was fired earlier this month after taking too long to recover from late-stage breast cancer cancer. In June 2009, Campbell took a year of unpaid leave to undergo chemotherapy and radiation treatment. Because Berlitz Japan failed to enroll Campbell in the shakai hoken health insurance scheme, she was unable to receive the two-thirds wage coverage it provides and had to live with her parents in Canada during treatment. The company denied Campbell’s request to extend her leave from June to Sept. 2010 and fired her for failing to return to work.
Berlitz Japan work rules allow for leave-of-absence extensions where the company deems it necessary.
“If cancer is not such a case, what would be?” Campbell asks. “On one hand, I’m lucky to be alive and healthy enough to even want to go back to work, so everything else pales in comparison,” she explained. “But on the other, the company’s decision does seem hard to understand. The leave is unpaid, and I don’t receive any health benefits, so it wouldn’t cost Berlitz anything to keep me on; and for me, it’s that much harder to restart my life without a job.”
Michael Mullen, Berlitz Japan senior human resources manager, declined to comment for this article, writing in an e-mail, “At the current time the company does not want to make any comments due to the ongoing legal dispute.”
The union is fighting both dismissals at the Tokyo Labor Commission. The panel is also hearing an unfair labor practices suit filed by Begunto that charges Berlitz Japan bargained in bad faith and illegally interfered with the strike by sending a letter to teachers telling them the strike was illegal and to stop walking out.
The next round of reconciliation talks and Tokyo Labor Commission hearing are both scheduled for Sept. 6.
Action
Health Checks – They’re mandatory! Interac ordered to obey the law
Cross-posted from the General Union in Osaka:
5 Jul 2010
Health Checks – They’re mandatory!
Interac ordered to obey the law
Industrial Health & Safety Act
For many westerners, the idea of a state mandated health check smacks of a nanny state, and we are often reluctant to submit to the tests. While not all companies obey this law, the fact remains it is compulsory for all employees to have an annual health check under article 66 of the act.
Tozen ALTs Sue For Unpaid Wages
Yesterday, seven Zenkoku Ippan Tokyo General Union ALT branch members sued Japan Advanced Labor Agency head (and JALSS Representative Director) Muhammed Ali Muhammed Mustafa (AKA Max Ali) at Tokyo District Court for a combined amount of 1,943,760 yen in unpaid wages and transportation expenses contractually owed the members while they worked for Muhammed Ali Muhammed Mustafa at the Funabashi City and Saitama City Boards of Education. Union lawyer Ken Yoshida asks the court for a provisional injunction and includes a claim for interest also to be paid at a rate of 6% yearly on top the unpaid wages.
This lawsuit is in addition to the breach of contract suit already in progress at Tokyo District Court with Muhammed Ali Muhammed Mustafa with a claim approaching 3,000,000 yen from another Zenkoku Ippan Tokyo General Union Tozen ALT member. The member previously won a favorable judgement for this claim against Mr. Mustafa at the Rodo Shimpan Labor Tribunal.
Are you an Assistant Language Teacher?
Are you unable to make ends meet because of unpaid wages, unpaid transportation expenses and dubiously documented pay deductions?
Join Zenkoku Ippan Tokyo General Union Tozen ALTs and help us build a union at your company and BOE.
RCS ALTs Declared to Management
Today, RCS members of the Tozen ALT Branch historically declared their union membership to RCS management and submitted a list of nine demands along with a call to the company to begin collective bargaining talks with Zenkoku Ippan Tokyo General Union on June 30, 2010 [rescheduled for July 16th, 2010 at company request].
The demands include:
Working Condition Demands 規範的部分 Kihanteki Bubun
1. Company eliminate temporary employment status for all members and recognize open-ended employment with no degradation to working conditions in order to give members job security.
会社は、全組合員の安定した雇用を実現するため、従来の労働条件を悪化することなく、有期雇用の雇用形態に拘らず期間の定めのない雇用を認める。2. Company eliminate piecemeal wages and institute monthly guarantees for all union members with no degradation to working conditions.
会社は、全組合員の給料に対し、従来の労働条件を悪化することなく、出来高制を廃止し、月額保障の制度を認めること。3. Company enroll all union members in unemployment insurance on the assumption of continued employment.
会社は、継続雇用を前提に全組合員を雇用保険を加入させること。4. Company pay the actual transportation costs for the commute to and from work to all union members.
会社は、全組合員に対し、通勤に伴う交通費の実費を支払うこと。
Are you an ALT working for RCS?
Do you want to improve the working conditions of yourself and other teachers? Take the first step towards improving your quality of life by joining the Tokyo General Union today!
Foreigners rally over job security
Hundreds of foreign and Japanese people staged a rally Sunday in Tokyo demanding better working conditions and employment benefits for foreign residents.
At the annual “March in March” event at Hibiya Park in Chiyoda Ward, Louis Carlet, deputy general secretary of the National Union of General Workers Tokyo Nambu, said foreign workers have a great need for job security and health care.
“It’s difficult to be a foreigner in any country. But it’s much more difficult when you don’t have job security, when you don’t have health care,” said Carlet, whose union jointly hosted the event with other groups lobbying for improved labor conditions.
One of the biggest problems is that most foreigners are being employed as nonregular workers, and more and more Japanese are being used the same way, he said.
Participants at the rally included people from many different ethnic backgrounds as well as various unions. Organizers said around 400 people took part.
Romsun Pramudito from Indonesia, who chairs the Tokyo-based nonprofit organization Indonesia Youth Association, said more job security should be given to foreigner workers.
“We are working very hard and really contributing to the country,” he said, adding he hopes foreigners receive better treatment. He also said foreigners and Japanese should collaborate to find a solution.
Buddhika Weerasinghe, a Fukui-based freelance photojournalist from Sri Lanka, came to the event because he is interested in the problems foreign workers face in Japan.
Weerasinghe said he has heard from foreign workers in the city of Fukui — many of them Chinese working in garment factories — that some received salary cuts without explanation and even experienced physical harassment. “I feel foreigners working in Japan are facing a lot of problems.”
While hopeful that improvement will accompany the change in government last September, little progress has been made, Carlet said.
“We want the new government to take this issue very seriously and make serious change,” he said.
The event also featured a live music by musicians from various countries, including Senegalese drum sessions and Ainu dancing from Hokkaido.
A march planned after the gathering, however, was called off because of the chilly rain, organizers said.
An open letter to Interac concerning health insurance
An open letter to the management of Interac (as well as Maxceed and Selnate)
November 5th, 2009
To whom it may concern (including Kevin Salthouse and Denis Cusack),
I am an executive of the ALT branch of Tokyo Nambu’s Foreign Workers Caucus. I worked for Interac from September of 2005 until February 2008, under the Osaka branch.
I am writing to clear up some misconceptions about health insurance in Japan that were evident in a couple of PDFs that were circulated from management at the beginning of October 2009.
The two PDFs in question are the “FAQ – Insurance System in Japan” and the one titled “Social Insurance Letter” dated October 1st, 2009. In these PDFs, you tell your ALTs that they are not eligible for Shakai Hoken if they work less than 29.5 hours.
This is not true.
You also tell them that the only alternative is to sign up for Kokumin Kenko Hoken and that they may have to pay up to two years of back enrollment.
The problem is that, since they are eligible for Shakai Hoken, it is the company that will have to pay the back enrollment (up to two years) into Shakai Hoken, after which the employee can be billed for their half of enrollment fees.
Let me give you some background information on how I know this.
Interac and Pregnancy: Getting Fired for Being Pregnant
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.
Liberation In Iwate
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.)
*********************************************
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.
New law: no dues, no visa
On a drab, rainy Sunday in June, a group of foreign workers gathered at the office of the National Union of General Workers Tokyo Nambu in Shimbashi to discuss an equally drab topic: social insurance. According to a new immigration law passed by the Diet earlier this month, foreign residents will be required to show proof of enrollment in Japan’s health insurance program in order to renew or apply for a visa after April 1, 2010.
A handful of attendees were young, but most were middle-aged or approaching retirement age. Many had been working in Japan for years and had never been told anything about insurance, while others were aware of the program but had been dissuaded by their employers from joining it.
Louis Carlet, deputy secretary of Nambu, laid it down for everyone in the room to understand. There are a few basic things that all foreigners in Japan have to know, he explained: first, that everyone over the age of 20 in Japan is required to enroll in an approved Japanese government health insurance scheme and pension fund. If you are under 75 and working at a company that employs more than five people, this most likely means the shakai hoken (social insurance) program; if you are unemployed, self-employed or retired, the equivalent system is the kokumin kenko hoken and kokumin nenkin (national health insurance and pension). The only people exempt are sailors, day laborers, and those working for companies employing less than five people, or for firms without a permanent address (e.g. a film set).
The two systems cover different ground, all of which is explained in detail at www.sia.go.jp/e/ehi.html. Roughly, shakai hoken consists of two parts: kenko hoken (health insurance), which covers 70 percent of your medical costs and 60 percent of lost wages due to illness, and kosei nenkin (pension insurance), which provides a pension after age 65 for those who have paid into the system. The two are inseparable, and anyone enrolled in shakai hoken through their employer automatically pays into both. The kokumin kenko hoken (national health insurance) and kokumin nenkin (national pension) package offers similar coverage but is not provided through an employer.
The bottom line is that all residents of Japan (except those mentioned above) have to be enrolled in one or other of the two systems. The revised visa laws, therefore, should pose no threat to anyone’s visa renewal, because every foreigner in Japan should already be enrolled.
However, the reality is that most foreigners in Japan do not have either form of insurance. For example, a 2004 survey by Hiroshi Kojima of the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research found that only 28.3 percent of Japanese Brazilians in Iwata City, Shizuoka Pref., had any kind of health insurance, and that of these only a third were enrolled in shakai hoken. Another survey in 2009 found that just one out of 27 manufacturing companies had enrolled its foreign employees in workers’ compensation, leaving thousands of foreigners ineligible for any form of assistance when the economic downturn hit Japan last year, leading to mass layoffs.
Foreign workers often hear a litany of reasons why they should not be enrolled in shakai hoken, or are simply not told about it at all. Employers would have a much tougher time leaving their Japanese staff off the system, argues Carlet, as many associate shakai hoken with a certain social status — those left out of the system tend to be in insecure employment such as day labor and very short-term contract work. For many Japanese workers, nonenrollment implies that their company either doesn’t value them as a long-term employee or simply doesn’t have the funds to cover the cost of insurance.