Gaba

It’s eight in the morning in a Tokyo office building, and a dozen middle-aged Japanese businessmen sit inside small booths, sweating as they try to talk English to the instructors in front of them.

“I hope my wife will understand my hobby,” one 40-something man says, opening his mouth widely around the English words.

He is one of legions of Japanese businessmen, or “salarymen,” struggling with a language they thought they had left behind them in school as fears mount that the growing push by Japanese companies into overseas business will mean a dark future for them without usable English.

This is especially true these days, with the strong yen and a lagging domestic market prompting more firms to look overseas for business opportunities essential for their bottom lines.

“I had a business trip to Amsterdam last year and that really was tough. My boss spoke no English, and I had to speak English for the first time in 10 years,” said Masahide Tachibana, a 39-year-old software developer.

Tachibana now gets up at 5:00 a.m. to take morning lessons at a central Tokyo branch of Gaba, an English language school.

“I’ve always wanted to brush up my English and that business trip ignited my aspirations,” said Tachibana, as around him other businessmen and women pack up and hurry to work after their 45-minute, one-on-one lessons.

Japan, despite being the world’s third-largest economy and a major export powerhouse, is known for its poor English-speaking ability even though six years of study are required in middle and high school.

The country’s average score on the TOEFL iBT, a computer-based test of English as a foreign language, in 2010 ranked 27th among 30 Asian countries, below Mongolia and Turkmenistan.

Only 9 percent of 1,156 white-collar workers surveyed by Recruit Agent, a recruiting firm, claim to be able to communicate in English. Many respondents evaluated their speaking and listening aptitude as “Barely.”

But things are starting to change, prompted by a growing sense of urgency about employment.

NO ENGLISH, NO JOBS?

The first push came from online retailer Rakuten’s 2010 decision to make English their official language. Fast Retailing, the operator of the Uniqlo apparel chain, also wants to make English its official language by 2012 and test its employees for proficiency.

“Rakuten’s decision triggered a shock-wave that’s extended to many other companies, especially manufacturers, because they too are under pressure to expand outside a shrinking home market,” said Yuriko Tsurumaki, a Recruit Agent spokeswoman.

“Not all Japanese firms have businesses overseas for the time being but people are seeing possibilities and sharing a sense of crisis (about English).”

Now nearly half of Japanese companies planning new hiring require applicants to be “business English users” – a big rise from 16 percent in July 2009, she said.

Highlighting fears among businessmen with poor English, a number of companies, including chip maker Elpida Memory and Murata Manufacturing Co, a maker of parts used in mobile phones and computers, are shifting some production outside Japan to cope with a currency near record highs.

The surging yen is also encouraging Japanese firms to acquire businesses overseas to build more revenue pillars, with trading house Itochu buying Britain’s tire seller Kwik Fit for $1 billion.

As a result, Japan’s foreign language education market is growing, with learners more than willing to fork out plenty of money on lessons, DVDs or e-learning.

It rose 1.6 percent to $9.8 billion in 2010 from a year earlier, said Yano Institute of Research, and is set to grow another 1.8 percent this year, making it a rare bright spot amid lagging Japanese private consumption.

“This is just the start of Japan’s real globalization. Everyone is feeling that they’ll see a no-English-no-job situation,” Gaba‘s president Kenji Kamiyama told Reuters in a recent interview.

Thanks to avid English learners, Gaba says it has almost achieved its student number target for the year and predicts the upbeat trend will likely last for a while. Gaba says that on average, a student spends about 50,000 yen ($654) a month — against an average 36,500 yen allowance for Japanese businesspeople.

“The English crisis shows the rapidly changing environment Japanese firms face. Most Japanese businessmen, for a long time, avoided an English-speaking environment,” Gaba’s Kamiyama said.

“But they now know that they can’t stay that way… It’s been a real kick in the pants for them.”

http://old.news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110922/lf_nm_life/us_japan_english

Nichii Gakkan Company announced that it has decided to launch a takeover bid for shares of Gaba Corporation. Nichii Gakkan Company intends to purchase 50,497 shares of Gaba Corporation at the price of JPY 200,000 per share during the period from August 8, 2011 to September 21, 2011. If Nichii Gakkan Company purchased as many shares of Gaba Corporation, it will hold 100% voting rights in Gaba Corporation. However, if Nichii Gakkan Company were not able to purchase at least 26,390 shares of Corporation, the takeover bid will be cancelled. Based on the result of the takeover bid, Gaba Corporation may be delisted from the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

http://uk.reuters.com/business/quotes/2133.T/key-developments/article/2378201

Nichii Gakkan Co. said Friday it will begin a tender offer to purchase shares of Gaba Corp., an operator of English-language conversation classes, in a move to bolster its education business.

Nichii plans to spend up to 10 billion yen to make Gaba a wholly owned subsidiary.

The offer price is 200,000 yen per share, a 53% premium over Friday’s close.

Gaba operates classes at 36 locations in the nation’s three major metropolitan areas. The bulk of its students are corporate employees. The firm posted 7.75 billion yen in sales and 596 million yen in net profit for the year ended December 2010.

Even though [Nichii’s] offerings have expanded beyond its mainstay preparatory courses for medical and nursing licenses, it is still struggling. The firm expects the Gaba brand to help it win contracts for corporate English training and to expand its online offerings.

http://e.nikkei.com/e/fr/tnks/Nni20110805D0508N04.htm

Union fears employment model could mark first step on slippery slope for eikawa firms

Long accustomed to being ignored, being forgotten proved too much to take for unionized teachers at Gaba language school. On Oct. 4, the General Union registered an official complaint and request for an investigation with the Ministry of Finance’s Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission (SESC).

The union accuses Gaba Corp. of lying in its 2009 financial report filed in March with the Tokyo Stock Exchange, which states that there is no union at Gaba and that labor-management relations were “smooth and harmonious.”

The G.U. argues it has an established Gaba Branch. Its complaint also points out that the Osaka Labor Commission ruled in December 2009 that it considered earlier negotiations held between the union and Gaba to represent collective bargaining.

The union also charges that the financial statement’s description of Gaba instructors as independent contractors rather than employees is disingenuous. The complaint points out that the Osaka commission also acknowledged Gaba’s instructors as employees under trade union law last December, and that the firm’s failure to mention that fact was misleading.

The SESC complaint is tied to a larger struggle for union recognition and employee rights at Gaba.

Instructors first formed a union in September 2007 and, according to union members, met with company representatives for talks. However, managers always refused to enter into serious negotiations, arguing the instructors were not employees and, as itaku — independent contractors — weren’t covered by Japanese labor laws.

Determining who qualifies as an employee and who can be classed as an independent contractor isn’t always clear. However, the method in which workers are scheduled and their place of work are important considerations.

“The company must be very careful it’s not treating them as employees,” says [Christopher] Gunson [an international transaction attorney]. “Even having someone in an office and working with an employee is risky.”

Gaba instructors are not alone in their fight for recognition as regular employees. According to journalist Naoki Kazama’s book “Koyo Yukai” (“Employment Meltdown”), there are no official statistics for the number of independent contractors working in Japan, but estimates range from 500,000 to 2 million workers.

Japan’s Statistics Bureau’s annual Labor Force Survey shows the number of nonregular workers has increased steadily since 1999, after the Japanese government started relaxing regulations to make it easier for companies to hire workers outside their regular employment system. In 1999, 25.6 percent of Japan’s labor force was classified as nonregular. By 2009 the figure had increased to 33.7 percent.

Employing instructors as independent contractors allows Gaba to reduce labor costs.

Instructors receive no paid sick days or vacation, no pay for training, no overtime pay, and there’s no limit on the number of unpaid overtime hours that can be worked. The company also avoids enrolling its instructors in unemployment insurance, the national health insurance and pension schemes, and workers’ compensation. It also fails to pay a commuting allowance to instructors.

The instructors, working on six-month contracts, also lack job security. Employment as independent contractors means Gaba can dismiss any teacher, with or without cause, simply by not renewing their contract.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20101019zg.html