Dispatch

Goodwill officials, client arrested

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Tokyo police arrested three officials of temp agency Goodwill Inc. on Tuesday over allegations they helped a client company “double dispatch” temp staff to work at potentially dangerous jobs at piers.

The three included Taisuke Uemura, 37, a former manager in charge of the northern Kanto region and currently the business strategy section chief, and Toshihiro Nogami, 35, a former manager of the Event Shinjuku branch.

Also arrested was Ryuichi Egawa, 47, a former executive of the client company, Towa Lease, a cargo firm. He is suspected of double dispatching Goodwill’s temp workers to two cargo-handling companies, Sasada-gumi and Taiyo Marine.

Double dispatching involves a temp agency, like Goodwill, sending workers to a client company, which in turn sends the same individuals to work at other companies.

The practice is prohibited under the Employment Security Law because it makes it unclear who is responsible for the workers’ safety.

Although the double dispatching practice is said to be rampant among temp agencies and their clients, the investigation into Goodwill, based in Tokyo’s Minato Ward, is the first to develop into a criminal case.

In addition, dispatching temp workers to dangerous jobs, such as port cargo-handling work, is prohibited under the temp worker dispatch law.

According to the Metropolitan Police Department, Towa Lease, also based in Minato Ward, does not have a license as a temp agency.

http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200806040060.html

Foreign teachers to be full-timers

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Foreign nationals will be hired as full-time instructors at Akita Prefecture elementary schools starting next April, when English lessons become part of the official curriculum, its education board said.

Native English speakers or those who have studied in English-speaking countries for a certain period can apply regardless of nationality or whether they hold a teacher’s license. All applicants must have a good command of Japanese, officials said.

The move is a first across Japan, the officials said. Assistant language teachers have so far been hired only on a part-time basis.

http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200805140084.html

Paper scandal points to shortcomings of Japan Inc

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Corporate governance is a relatively new concept in Japan, the world’s second-largest economy.

It ranks 38th out of 49 nations, lagging behind South Africa, Venezuela and Peru, according to GovernanceMetrics International, a corporate governance ratings agency.

The scandals come on top of what analysts see as insular management styles in Japan and an insufficient number of outside directors.

Japan’s Nikkei benchmark average was the worst performing index among among major stock markets in 2007.

Restructuring and economic malaise in the late 1990s and early 2000s, as well as the erosion of Japan’s lifetime employment system weakened employee loyalty, giving rise to whistleblowers as well as making consumers more outspoken.

The paper scandal, which has enveloped other major domestic paper makers, was revealed by a whistleblower, said TV broadcaster TBS which broke the news.

It follows cases where firms sold food past its expiry date — mostly by small firms but also affecting McDonald’s Japan, which said some of its stores may have done so.

Staffing agency Goodwill Group Inc suspended on Friday all its branch operations for several months — a government penalty for breaching employment regulations when it sent out temporary workers out. It also withdrew from nursing care services last year after it inflated staff numbers.

Other high-profile scandals last year included the failure of Japan’s biggest English language school chain Nova, after fraudulent advertising.

“There have been so many scandals, I guess there are worries about what industry is going to be next,” said Takeo Omura, a corporate governance analyst at the Daiwa Institute of Research.

http://www.forbes.com/reuters/feeds/reuters/2008/01/18/2008-01-18T105019Z_01_T49215_RTRIDST_0_JAPAN-SCANDALS.html

Growing Reliance on Temps Holds Back Japan’s Rebound

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Firms Increasingly Add Part-Time Workers; Spending Power Lags

The rise of temps began in the 1990s as Japan entered its long slump and low-cost nations such as China posed unprecedented competition. To compete, Japanese companies shifted large chunks of their manufacturing capacities overseas. At home, cost-cutting came slowly, partly because layoffs were taboo.

Then, labor-law deregulation gave companies a new way to restructure, while keeping some of their treasured manufacturing capabilities in Japan.

Until the late ’90s, worker-friendly laws forbade temporary-labor contracts except for a few specialized areas, such as computer programming. A change in 1999 allowed temp agencies to dispatch workers to many more types of jobs. And in 2004, manufacturers were allowed to use workers sent by temporary-help agencies.

That change encouraged companies such as Toyota and Canon Inc. to start hiring temps en masse. At Canon and its subsidiaries and affiliates, the number of part-timers and temps nearly quadrupled from 2003 to last June, to about 40,000, according to securities filings. Full-timers are more numerous, at 127,000, but their numbers rose a more modest 24%.

Temps find it difficult to become full-time. When the economy began recovering about five years ago and companies needed more full-time workers, they got them by hiring fresh graduates. In a 2006 survey by staffing agency Pasona Group, two-thirds of companies responding said they were reluctant to make part-timers or temps full time. Many firms cited a lack of skills. Temps rarely get much training from their employers.

Longtime temps say conditions have deteriorated. Yoko Mitome, 49, was a sales executive at a travel agency for two decades, jetting about and planning package tours to exotic spots. She lost this $50,000-a-year job in 1998 as the employer sought to cope with falling sales near the bottom of Japan’s long slump. She got a temp job as an operator for international calls at a unit of phone company KDDI Corp.

Since then, the hourly wages have stayed fairly stable but the company has stopped paying transportation expenses and good-attendance bonuses, has shortened breaks and has shortened employment contracts to three or six months from a year.

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB119939511325465729-lMyQjAxMDE4OTA5NzMwOTc1Wj.html

Assistant language teachers in trying times

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Meanwhile, local boards of education have started to realize they cannot get competent, experienced teachers either by subcontracting to private firms or through the JET program because many of them come to Japan just out of college without any background in education.

Taito Ward in Tokyo said it plans to stop outsourcing ALTs to private companies. It is considering advertising for candidates on its Web site and asking them to give a presentation on the kind of lessons they plan to offer as part of its screening process.

The city of Musashino on the outskirts of Tokyo plans to seek applicants among native English speakers who live in the area instead of subcontracting from private companies.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20080105f1.html

Agencies reap tidy profits as temp numbers soar

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A record-high 3.21 million people worked at least one temporary job in fiscal 2006, an increase of 26.1 percent–another record high–from the previous fiscal year, according to a Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry report.

The annual turnover of temporary agencies was about 5.42 trillion yen–an increase of 34.3 percent from fiscal 2005, the report said.

However, the 30 percent to 40 percent margins being creamed off by these agencies has come under attack from temporary worker labor unions and other groups. Under the Temporary Staffing Services Law, owners of temporary staffing agencies must report once a year to the ministry on matters such as the number of temps they dispatch and the dispatch fees they receive. A total of 41,966 businesses made such reports to the ministry in fiscal 2006.

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/business/20071230TDY02308.htm

Nova management in further turmoil

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Management turmoil at Osaka-based English-conversation school company Nova Corp. has led to the sudden closure of schools, complaints about tuition refund delays and other problems.

Of its about 900 schools nationwide, around 50 had closed as of the end of September. This month, at least another 50 schools will be unable to offer lessons due to the absence of teachers and are effectively closed.

Students at existing schools are having difficulty reserving lessons, while students who have canceled their lesson contracts are not sure when their tuitions will be refunded.

With its finances deteriorating, the company that once boasted 400,000 students nationwide is in turmoil.

On Monday, the General Union, which includes foreign Nova teachers as members, held an explanatory meeting in Osaka. About 200 students attended the event.

A 58-year-old female student of the Nova Sakai school in Sakai, Osaka Prefecture, which closed in mid-October, said: “I thought my school would be all right, but it closed abruptly. I didn’t know [the company’s] management was in such bad condition.”

According to a 52-year-old male student at the Tennoji main school, the school is open, but students can rarely take lessons due to the lack of foreign English teachers. The man bought points for lessons for 700,000 yen in advance and still has some remaining. “Students who can’t go anywhere else have been deserted,” he said angrily.

A 63-year-old woman who has studied at Nova for the last seven years, said: “Some teachers still teach us with enthusiasm. I hope the company will be able to keep them through changing the management.”

Delays in salary payments to employees and foreign teachers began in July, resulting in the loss of many teachers and making it impossible to regularly give lessons.

According to sources, about 50 schools in the Tokyo metropolitan area and the Kinki region had been closed as of the end of September.

In October, at least another 50 schools were unable to offer lessons due to the loss or absenteeism of teachers.

The situation has also affected public schools in Osaka.

The Osaka Municipal Board of Education decided on Tuesday to cancel a contract with Nova to dispatch assistant language teachers to 335 municipal primary, middle and high schools.

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20071025TDY03304.htm

Cash-strapped NOVA fails to honor contracts to public schools after teacher exodus

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OSAKA — Scandal-hit major English school operator NOVA failed to dispatch English teachers to local public schools after many teachers quit or took leave because they didn’t get paid, officials said.

By Monday, NOVA had cancelled its planned dispatch of English teachers to five municipal elementary schools and five municipal junior high schools at least once.

The education board is now considering canceling its contract with NOVA.

In the 2007 academic year, the municipal education board commissioned three English conversation school operators, including NOVA, to dispatch teachers to junior high schools and elementary schools under its jurisdiction, officials said.

NOVA is supposed to dispatch teachers to 79 junior high schools once or twice a week and to 286 elementary schools on several occasions a year.

However, NOVA, which has been in financial difficulty since some of its business activities were suspended in June by the government regulator over its illegal business practices, has failed to promptly pay wages to many of its teachers.

In response, a large number of NOVA teachers have quit their jobs or taken days off without prior notice. A shortage of teachers has forced NOVA to cancel the dispatch of some teachers to Osaka public schools, education board officials said.

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/national/news/20071024p2a00m0na022000c.html

Nova’s exact bid raises eyebrows

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Nova Corp. in Osaka, the nation’s largest English school chain, won a public tender for an Osaka Municipal Board of Education program to dispatch assistant language teachers to municipal middle schools in spring 2006 with a price matching the closed ceiling price of 54,850,200 yen, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned.

A board official said the matching prices were purely coincidental. The board, however, plans to investigate whether information about the tender had been leaked, since the bids matched within a margin of only 100 yen.

The firm also won other public tenders for a similar program for primary schools with bids of 95 to 98 percent of the ceiling prices.

According to the board, three firms, including Nova, participated in public bidding to supply ALTs to 116 middle schools and other schools on March 17, 2006. However, the tender was unsuccessful as all three firms placed bids higher than the target price. The board conducted the second public tender, with a higher target price, the following month. Two firms, including Nova, which had participated in the first tender, and another firm placed bids, with Nova’s matching the ceiling price.

Public tenders for a similar program at 299 municipal primary schools were held by dividing the schools into three groups based on their location on March 17, 2006. Nova’s bid for one group–6.55 million yen, and 98 percent of the ceiling price–was successful, but there were no winning bids for the other two groups.

Nova won one of two tenders held on April 25 the same year, with a bid of 4.59 million yen, 95 percent of the ceiling price, while another firm won a tender for another group with a bid that was 83 percent of the ceiling price.

The board official told a Yomiuri Shimbun reporter that contracts for the programs had to be made quickly because the new term had already begun, but denied the possibility of the leak.

The official also insisted the results of the tenders were coincidental, saying: “If the information of the closed planned price had leaked, would Nova have matched the contract price [down to the hundreds of yen] as doing so was sure to raise questions?”

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20070622TDY02007.htm

Education boards hit for using contract staff as ALTs

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Twenty-three municipal boards of education in Osaka Prefecture are suspected of using native English-speaking contract workers as assistant language teachers and placing them under the control of schools, a possible violation of the Temporary Staffing Services Law, an Osaka-based union announced Thursday.

The Osaka Labor Bureau has instructed six municipal boards of education, including those in Takatsuki, Sakai, Hirakata and Higashi-Osaka, to reconsider the practices, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned.

A union spokesman said it was legal for the boards to use the contract workers as ALTs as long as they worked at the public schools under the direction of the staffing agencies. But he added that the boards of education had used the temporary workers like dispatch workers, who are under the direct control of schools.

According to the union comprising 550 Japanese and non-Japanese workers, which also provides consultation services for those workers, the 23 municipal boards said they received the contract workers from staffing agencies and let them work at public schools as ALTs, who are required to follow school curriculums and policies.

In January, the union sent questionnaires to all 43 municipal boards of education in the prefecture. Twenty-three said they had used contract workers sent from the agencies as ALTs, the union said.

A 27-year-old teacher who was dispatched to the Hashimoto Municipal Board of Education in Wakayama Prefecture by Zenken said he was given a general orientation about ALTs by the firm before he began working at public schools in the city, adding that he was usually instructed what to do in class by Japanese teachers.

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20070323TDY02008.htm