Action

Berlitz Striking Teachers Make History

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The Berlitz General Union Tokyo (Begunto, a local of Nambu) maintained and expanded its 2007 shunto strike during this year’s shunto, focusing on two demands: a 4.6% across-the-boards base pay hike and a one month bonus.

Nearly half of all 46 Berlitz schools in the Kanto plain have been hit by walkouts since the dispute began last December. Over 55 teachers have joined in the time-fixed, volunteer strikes, making it by many accounts the largest enduring work stoppage in the history of Japan’s language industry.

“What we have discovered to our surprise and delight and to management’s chagrin is that many employees are joining the union just to participate in the strike,” said Begunto case officer Louis Carlet. “The strike is the best unionizing tool we have ever had.”

Another crucial point is that while most language school labor disputes aim to maintain or protect working conditions or employment, this strike is “aggressive rather than defensive in that we are fighting for a raise,” notes Begunto Vice President Catherine Campbell.

The union has also held several rowdy, boisterous pickets at several schools around the region, even at non-striking schools, urging coworkers to do the right thing. Check out a video of one such action:

Jack London’s scathing “definition of a scab” also hangs on the union board at most Kanto schools. Finally, some Kanagawa strikers created a rap song specifically about our 2008 shunto fight:

Little Garden Smashes Shamelessness Record for Union Discrimination

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NUGW Tokyo Nambu on May 15 filed a petition against preschool Little Garden for redress from unfair labor practices — sued the firm for union busting — at the Tokyo Labor Commission.

Last summer, teachers and admin staff tried to build a union but management came down hard, making clear that anyone who joined would not last long. Most backed down, but one courageous teacher named Joyce continued the fight. Nambu waited to declare her membership until after her employment contract was renewed in April. Little Garden gave her a raise along with the renewal.

Two weeks after declaration, Little Garden gave our Joyce a dismissal notice. During collective bargaining, management claimed that although during her first year of employment she had a sterling record, in the fortnight between declaration and dismissal, the company received a record number of complaints from parents of the preschoolers. The union believes the real record is rather for “shamelessness of union discrimination.”

Nambu doesn’t brook union-busting. We have begun strikes, leaflets and will pursue the employees’ right to unionize by all legal means necessary.

As parent firm posts record profits, Berlitz teachers strike back

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“Benesse boasts openly on its Web site about the success of its ‘Language Company’ sector, mentioning Berlitz Japan in particular,” notes longtime Berlitz teacher and Begunto (Berlitz General Union Tokyo) Vice President Catherine Campbell.

The language teachers of Begunto didn’t need a math class to put two and two together, and in April 2007 they began “shunto” (spring) negotiations for a “base-up” raise and bonus.

As the time of writing, at least 55 teachers have conducted “spot strikes” at at least 16 Berlitz schools, most of these in greater Tokyo. Begunto says it is encouraged by the response: Some French and Spanish teachers have walked out, and several more teachers have joined the union. That adds up to teachers walking out of 275 lessons in the greater Tokyo area, at large schools in Ikebukuro and Akasaka as well as suburban locations such as Seijo Gakuen, Atsugi and Kashiwa.

Louis Carlet, Deputy Secretary General of the National Union of General Workers [Tokyo Nambu], Begunto’s parent union, writes that Berlitz has been forced to “spend massive amounts of money and resources sending ‘shadows’ to cover the classes of potential strikers with strikebreakers.”

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20080506zg.html

LABOUR-JAPAN: Foreign Workers’ Grievances Erupt At Rally

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With its own population both aging and declining, Japan needs migrant workers to sustain its economy. But the government?s failure to formulate an accommodative policy was evident at a rally in the capital on Sunday attended by some 300 foreign workers.

Waving banners and shouting slogans such as “stop discrimination against foreign workers” and “Japanese look at us like we?re terrorists,?? workers from different parts of the globe marched through the capital?s Shibuya district.

Protestors from the United States, Canada, South America, Europe, Asia and Africa heard angry speeches over a variety of grouses and frustrations, such as a trend towards hiring the cheapest available foreign labour and exploit it to the maximum.

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41521

Foreign workers rally in Tokyo for equal rights, job security

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Angry and frustrated, nearly 300 foreign residents of Japan rallied in the streets of central Tokyo Sunday to demand equal rights and job security. At the fourth annual demonstration, workers from Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas spoke about unfair treatment they received on the job in Japan. South Korea’s song for democracy, “Great China” and “Venceremos” echoed in a park in the trendy Tokyo district of Shibuya, where demonstrators gathered before they took to the streets.

“We must take matters in our own hands and raise awareness of the problems foreign workers face in Japan,” said Satoshi Murayama of the Kanagawa City Union, whose members come mostly from Latin America.

While Japan has accepted an increasing number of foreign workers, many employment problems have been reported.

“In Japan, companies hire foreign workers as cheap labour, and that has to stop,” Zentoitsu unionist Ippei Torii said. Torii has received many phone calls from trainees who were brought from China to work at farms or factories in the outskirts of Tokyo for 300 yen (2.9 dollars) to 500 yen an hour.

Zentoitsu has 2,600 of its total 3,600 members from outside of Japan.

Ali Nusrat from Pakistan is currently asking his company to pay worker’s compensation for burns on his hands. He was working at a bread-making company after he retired from a factory filling lunch boxes for five years for 750 yen per hour.

Tony Dolan said he was on strike for two weeks demanding social security benefits from a company where he worked for 12 years as a full-time teacher. The US citizen holds a permanent visa and has lived in Japan for 13 years.

Last year, Japan’s largest English school went bankrupt and hundreds of teachers, mostly from Australia, were laid off.

A Japanese onlooker agreed with the foreign workers’ demand for equal rights because he said they are forced to bear worse working conditions than most Japanese people.

“Some Japanese people try to ignore the problems faced by foreign residents, but we should all know about the issue and think about it,” he said.

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/191002,foreign-workers-rally-in-tokyo-for-equal-rights-job-security.html

Foreign workers rally in Shibuya for equal rights

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JOB SECURITY, SOCIAL INSURANCE DEMANDED

Foreign workers staged a rally in Shibuya Ward, Tokyo, on Sunday as part of their annual spring labor offensive, calling for proper and equal treatment on par with Japanese working conditions.

Hundreds of people from various countries gathered in Miyashita Park for the afternoon “March in March” event.

“Employers must begin to treat foreigners as equal as Japanese and give them job security and equality,” said Louis Carlet, deputy general secretary of the National Union of General Workers Tokyo Nambu, which jointly organized the rally with Japanese labor unions.

Before the march, music and sports performances were staged at Miyashita Park, and keynote speeches were given by representatives from various labor unions.

Around 3 p.m., the participants, foreign and Japanese, left the park and began marching down the middle of Meiji Boulevard, chanting demands for improved working conditions and saying “no” to discrimination, including mandatory fingerprinting for foreigners upon entering Japan.

The props for the rally included not only signs and flags, but also a casket to draw attention to the failure of Nova Corp., the giant language-school chain that went bust last year, leaving thousands of teachers jobless.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20080310a2.html

SAITU Strikes Back at Simul International

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This week marks the first week of industrial action at language school Simul International, the first in its history. Tony and his fellow members have shown tremendous courage with surgical strikes nearly every day on the demand to be enrolled in Shakai Hoken health and pension.

Foreign workers are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of enrollment in Shakai Hoken health and pension schemes. In addition to a legal obligation for both employer and employee, it is an important protection in the event of injury or illness. Employees in Shakai Hoken also tend to be treated more like real, permanent employees, meaning it provides a modicum of job security on top of income and health security.

Attention G-communication teachers and staff

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G-Education and its parent company G-communication repeated NOVA’s pattern of broken promises when they suddenly announced the dismissals of 800 former NOVA teachers and staff who had been promised work at G-comm in January. The declaration, coming just a week after the company president publicly repeated assurances of re-employment, leaves many facing once again the problems of housing, visa extensions, and no job.

The NUGW Tokyo Nambu office will be open Sunday, January 6, from 2:00 to 6:00 pm, for G-communications teachers and staff who wish to join GUTS (G Union of Teachers and Staff). The union is open to those who were promised employment at the company, including people currently working at G, and those who received letters of dismissal during December. We have submitted demands that G-comm honour its committment to full re-employment; join us to insist that G-comm take responsibility for its actions.

Firm reneges on promised jobs for Nova teachers

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National Union of General Workers Tokyo Nambu, a Tokyo-based labor union [and predecessor of Zenkoku Ippan Tokyo General Union] whose ranks include many ex-Nova teachers, also decried G.education’s sudden announcement.

“It was all very sudden. It was a big shock to people,” said Catherine Campbell, who is currently in charge of the Nova case at the union. “They don’t know what they are going to do.”

According to Campbell, teachers were notified of G.education’s decision last Friday via e-mail.

She criticized G.education for breaking its promise and for the timing of its bad news, coming when many job aspirants had returned to their homes overseas for Christmas.

They had hoped to come back to Japan and work, but now that the jobs they were expecting are unlikely to materialize, they may find themselves unable to pay the rent for their apartments full of their belongings, she said.

Yujiro Hiraga, president of [Zenkoku Ippan Tokyo General Union’s predecessor] National Union of General Workers Tokyo Nambu, said the union will seek collective bargaining because G.education has not provided a clear explanation for its decision.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20071226a1.html

The G.rinch That Stole Christmas

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G.communications has gone back on its promise to hire all former NOVA teachers who apply, announcing on Christmas Eve that 600 applicants would not be rehired.

Reasons given for the decision include difficulties in reopening schools, and the company’s plans to relocate the Ochanomaryugaku (interactive TV lessons) operation overseas in order to cut costs.

This is an abrupt change from the company which assured union representatives just a week earlier that all applicants would be hired. NOVA teachers who went home for the holidays, expecting to return to work in January, are now reeling from this second betrayal.

NUGW Tokyo Nambu and the General Union will be demanding collective bargaining with G.communications later this week.