2024年5月30日
この法案を出して「共生」という言葉を使わないでください
―永住許可取り消しに反対します―
日本政府は、2024年2月「外国人材の受け入れ・共生に関する関係閣僚会議」で、「育成就労制度」の創設に加えて、永住許可要件を満たさなくなった場合の永住許可取り消しを検討する方針を決定した。これまで何ら議論もなされないなか、突如降って湧いて出てきたものである。しかし、あれよあれよという間にこの方針を盛り込んだ入管法改正案が5月 21日に衆議院を通過した。
Announcement
東ゼン労組は募集中 Tozen is now hiring
職種名： 労働組合専従職員の補助業務 (フルタイム、週40時間)
Job Title: Union Org (Organizer) Apprentice (full-time, 40 hrs/week)
職務内容：
労働組合の専従職員の補助業務となります。具体的には、組合員の組織化や支部結成等の組織強化活動や、組合員の労働条件の維持・向上を目的とした団体交渉、労働協約、労働争議等、労働組合の業務一般に広く関わっていただきます。
１年間は2名の専従職員の補助業務を担っていただくことになります。組合執行部、組合員のみならず、外部の友好組織との関係構築も重要です。この仕事には、優れたコミュニケーション能力、リーダーシップ、管理能力と共に、社会正義と労働者の権利拡大への強い関心が求められます。
この求人は1年間の契約（研修）であり、1年後に正社員として雇用される可能性があります。最初の1年間は、経験豊富な専従オルグと共に研修を積んでいただきます。1年後、双方が合意に達すれば、無期雇用とする可能もあるものの、これを保証するものではありません。
Job Summary:
As a union org, you will play a pivotal role in advocating for members’ rights and working conditions, organizing collective bargaining and labor disputes, and fostering solidarity among workers of various industries. Your primary responsibility will be to engage with members, build relationships, and organize campaigns aimed at forming or strengthening Tozen and Tozen locals. You will work closely with union leadership, allied organizations, and members to address workplace issues, negotiate contracts, and promote fair labor practices. This position requires strong communication, leadership, and administrative skills, as well as a commitment to social justice and worker empowerment.This position is for a one year contract as an apprentice, with the possibility to become a regular worker after one year. In the first year, you will train with experienced organizers. After one year, if all parties agree, muki-koyo is possible but not guaranteed.
Tozen Union Joins Contingent Worker Alliance for Demo, Presser
- Tozen Union and other unions in the Hiseiki Shunto Alliance demanded that Keidanren (Japan Business Federation) stop exploiting those working on fixed-term, temporary, day-labor, short-hour, outsourcing and other contracts lacking job or income security.
- The contingent workers unions staged a protest in front of federation’s Tokyo headquarters in front of several major news outlets before then moving to a press conference on the ninth floor of the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Labor.
Collective Bargaining Demands Submitted to Interac/Maxceed
Demands for collective bargaining were submitted today to the offices of Interac/Maxceed/Selti.
Remember that time you asked your boss about Shakai Hoken and you were ignored?
Or that time you asked about the possibility of a pay raise next year and you were brushed off?
Or that time you asked why you only get partial salary during the month of December even though the company gets the full amount from the Board of Education, and you never got a response to the email?
Well, unlike all those other times, a demands issued from a union as part of collective bargaining cannot legally be ignored.
The revolution in the Tokyo area starts now.
Who wants in?
We will be publishing some of our demands non-specific to individuals soon.
Stay tuned.
Solidarity,
Erich
Renewal Time
Hello all,
It is that time of year again! Time for the mad scramble of March when good teachers everywhere are worried if their contracts are going to be renewed or not, otherwise known as the “ALT Shuffle”. Two things you should be sure NOT to do:
1) Do NOT let your employer force you to sign resignation papers! You do not need to sign any such thing. If they do not have work for you, they should give you dismissal papers so that you can claim your unemployment benefits until you find your next job.
2) Do NOT let your employer threaten you into leaving your apartment. It does not matter whether your employer is your guarantor or not, you can pay your landlord directly. Tenant’s rights are strong in Japan, but they are non-existant if you do not claim them.
If you find yourself facing either of these situations, call your local union representative to report the harassment.
If you are not in a union, and would like to fight against these kinds of ill treatment, join a union and help improve the working conditions of Japan.
Solidarity,
Erich
Open Letter to Kevin Salthouse
Kevin Salthouse,
I am glad to hear that the new Interac is “financially stable”. With this financial stability, I can think of no better way to move from “strength to strength” than by improving the working conditions of all of your ALTs. Here are a few suggestions that I personally think would benefit all ALTs:
Changes in October
For those of you that did not get the memo, Interac is about to go through some big changes. I have heard two very different announcements on the subject. From Kevin Salthouse, we all have this PDF file stating that Interac will be going through a “new phase of operations” and that this is just a “reorganization”. The General Union in Osaka however, has uncovered more details that point towards a new aquisition and a buyout by Advantage Partners, a company that describes its own business model as “Direct private equity investment via start-up and acquisition”.
It appears that Interac as we know it may be completely taken over and dissolved, although we may not know for sure until October first. Interac recently lost its right to do business with Osaka prefecture BoEs when it was found guilty of an Unfair Labor Practice against the General Union and of interfering in union business. Our members that have sued Interac have also won several court cases, meaning even more financial punishment.
When I originally heard of the name change and the association with bankruptcy, I was a bit skeptical. I thought Interac may have been changing names to avoid paying the damages to union members and as a way to get around the recent ruling that prevents them from doing business in Osaka prefectural BoEs. This certainly would not have been out of character for them; they have for years had a second name, Maxceed, that they used to double-bid BoEs across the nation. They would submit one bid as Interac, and one bid as Maxceed, and shuffle their ALTs between Maxceed/Interac contracts as needed. I was hired as an ALT for Interac in 2005, and was placed in a city where I was expected to lie to the BoE and tell them that my company was called “Maxceed”. The contract between the BoE and the dispatch company said “Maxceed”. My contract with the people in the same office, with the same employees with a different phone number said “Interac”. Also, in the past year, ALTs have complained to us that their time is split between “Maxceed” and “Interac” so that Interac can pretend that the ALT has two part time jobs, instead of a full time job and have an excuse to avoid giving the ALT full time benefits. If Interac is going to be dissolved, these kinds of practices never favored the ALT’s working conditions, and they will not be missed.
Whether Interac will be going fully under or whether things will really just be “reorganized”, my personal concern, shared among my fellow union members, is centered on the stability of employment for the foreign teachers in Japan. I am urging every ALT in Interac/Maxceed/every-other-dispatch-company-in-Japan to band together, unionize and fight back to improve working conditions for yourselves and for the people who will want to come to Japan and teach here in the future. Demand to be directly hired! Every Interac/Maxceed contract I have ever seen has either been
1) illegal according to the The Ministry of Education guidelines concerning proper dispatch methods or
2) has enough clauses in it that violate Labor Standards/Trade Union Law that the whole thing is null and void.
If you unionize and claim your right to be directly hired, the BoEs will not be able to ignore you. I have seen it myself; the when I was in Osaka and a member of the General Union, we forced my BoE to direct hire, and the ALTs there are in a much better position today than they were in 2005.
If you are tired of the instability of your job, of getting reduced or no pay for March or August, of getting penalized for being sick, then you should force the BoE to take responsibility. Unionize, and demand direct employment and the full benefits that you are entitled to under the law.
In Solidarity,
Erich Manning
http://interacunion.org/
https://tozenunion.org/
http://interac.generalunion.org/
http://fukuoka.generalunion.org/
The ALT Scam
Cross-posted from the Fukuoka General Union.
Throughout Japan Boards of Education have been moving away from the JET program in favour of outsourcing ALT jobs to dispatch companies. In Fukuoka it has come to the point that most BOEs subcontract out their work.
This page is aimed to shed some light on the current systems that operate to the detriment of ALTs – who are practically all non-Japanese (NJ).
Interac and Tokai Board of Education found guilty of illegal dispatch
Cross-posted from the General Union
After more than six months of union action, Interac and Tokai Board of Education have been found guilty of illegal dispatch by the Aichi Prefectural Labor Board. Watch this space – full story in the coming weeks.
Attention ALTs!
If Interac tries to pressure you into signing up for Kokumin Kenko Hoken, don’t do it! Kokumin Kenko Hoken is for people that are self-employed or unemployed. If you sign up for Kokumin Kenko Hoken, you may be forced to back enroll into the system up to the time that you started working in Japan (meaning you will have to pay your monthly dues up to the maximum limit of two years).
Instead, you should enroll into Shakai Hoken, because Interac will be forced to pay their half. If there is any back enrollment it will be covered by the company, not by you. You are all eligible for this. The only reason Interac tells you otherwise is because they don’t want to pay their portion of the money.
You can do this on your own, or you can join the “Interac union” (aka members of the Zenkoku Ippan Tokyo General Union Tozen ALTs) and we can force them to pay up together in solidarity. The Tokyo General Union has a lot of experience in forcing companies to enroll their employees into Shakai Hoken so we can get you enrolled with much less effort on you part.
Solidarity