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Teachers are workers, not martyrs: the severance scandal that isn’t

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labor pains 13

Saints or sinners?: Some media outlets and politicians appear to be apoplectic over the decision by some state school teachers to retire months early to safeguard potentially millions of yen in severance pay. | AP

Story originally published in Japan Times

“Teachers quitting before graduation?!” the headlines screamed as we headed into the new year.

Traditionally, Japanese teachers head into retirement after March school graduations. However, this January, many teachers left their posts ahead of time, in a wave of resignations that began in Saitama and spread across Japan.

But why?

The story begins with teachers’ severance payments — specifically, the Yoshihiko Noda Cabinet’s decision in August last year to drastically reduce them. The move by the last Democratic Party of Japan-led administration came in response to a fiscal 2010 study of public-sector pension obligations that found the average central government employee’s severance payment was ¥4 million more than that of private-sector workers.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications ordered local governments to “make cuts in line with those to central government employees.” However, as the ministry did not specify when these measures were supposed to be taken, the local governments have implemented them at different, haphazard times.

The results have been chaotic. Coming back to Saitama, the local government there has decided to reduce all severance payments from February, with the difference in retirement payments for teachers before and after that time coming to roughly ¥1.4 million.

The result is — apparently unexpectedly — that of the 1,290 teachers due for retirement this year, 104 are choosing to retire in January.

The effects of this will also extend beyond teachers to police officers and other civil servants.

Here, let’s step back for a moment and think about what place teachers occupy in our society today. I can’t help but think there’s something strange going on.

Take, for example, what the new minister of education, Hakubun Shimomura, said in response to reports of early teacher retirements: “Teachers ought to put students first and stay at their posts through the end of the school year.” Or Councilor Satsuki Katayama, also of the newly elected Liberal Democratic Party, who blasted teachers in a blog posting last month: “(If highly paid local government employees had stopped these measures), the national government would have been unable to make savings of ¥10-20 billion, and local governments would be unable to make nearly ¥100 million worth of savings. . . . Have people lost all honor? Is there no goodness left in mankind?” (Note that Katayama seems to have no problem with “highly paid” public servants such as herself.)

Even at the best of times, public-servant-bashing is a popular political pastime. However, it is becoming dangerously entwined with a “myth of the teacher-martyr” — that is, the idea that teachers should spare not a thought for such worldly concerns as money, and put their school and students at the absolute front and center of their lives.

With all this, one cannot help but think that the teachers who are retiring early this year are among the most brazenly selfish human beings gracing God’s green Earth. And, by implication, that the teachers staying on must be simply wondrous.

But somehow that seems a bit much.

First, as painfully obvious as it may be, it’s worth remembering that teachers are workers. And in light of the martyrization of Japanese teachers currently going on, I wonder what impression is being pressed into the minds of today’s young Japanese.

Can it possibly be good for Japan if the first thing that tomorrow’s workers learn about adult life is that you positively should sacrifice yourself to your job? What would happen if they emerge into adult life and find themselves working under terrible conditions? Will they make use of their rights to improve things for themselves and their fellow workers? Or will they think back to their teachers and the example they set, and grin and bear whatever newer and more ridiculous abuses come their way?

Today’s teachers are burdened with myriad challenges, ranging from bullying to dealing with monster parents, from coping with students who become hikikomori (children who withdraw completely from society) to acting as guidance counselors for students facing the complexities of the modern world. Countless teachers are taking sick leave due to mental health issues, committing suicide or simply dying from overwork. And if society forces teachers to adhere to unrealistic standards of perfection, then it will leave them all the more with no alternative to these drastic measures.

To put it another way, if teachers are being forced to literally sacrifice themselves to create a fun and positive learning environment, how fun, positive or educational could that environment possibly be? If we want children to grow up to enjoy full and meaningful lives, shouldn’t the adults we pay to set them a good example themselves enjoy full and meaningful lives?

And if that’s the case, shouldn’t teachers have decent and secure working conditions (and here I’m not just talking about salaries)? “Education = sainthood = forced martyrdom” doesn’t really achieve any educational aim in any way, shape or form.

Here I want to come back to severance. A severance payment is a reward for many long years of service, so, in contrast to regular pay, you can only claim it when you retire. While there are cases when changes in management or labor-management relations can bring about changes in severance agreements, it seems only logical that promises about severance made when a work contract is signed shouldn’t be able to be changed part-way through.

In Japan, when work regulations or labor-management agreements are concluded, severance payments are treated as “deferred wages.” Because of their crucial role in providing for daily life in old age, it is completely unacceptable to allow reductions in severance to be made easily.

While it is legal to make reductions to severance during regular negotiations over wages, case law stipulates that due to the above considerations, this is allowable only in cases of “extreme need” (Omagari-shi Agricultural Cooperative Case, Supreme Court ruling, Feb. 16, 1988).

To consider some concrete examples, we could look at the famous 1983 ruling against Mikuni Hire, where the Supreme Court found that the company’s reduction in severance payments was unreasonable because it didn’t provide sufficient compensation.

In another famous ruling against Michinoku Bank in 2000, the Supreme Court found the company’s cuts to be unreasonable due to a lack of transitional measures put in place for employees and, again, insufficient compensation in exchange for the cuts.

At any rate, it seems no protest was made by unions in the face of the remarkable cuts made to teachers’ severance pay. As teachers are local government employees, they are covered by Article 52, Paragraph 1 of the Local Public Service Law. Under this law “employee organizations,” which are unions in fact if not in name, are charged with representing the interests of workers.

It is at precisely such a time that unions should be fighting tooth and nail to preserve education workers’ rights. And from there, if they can fight to preserve not only teachers’ rights, but also the rights of all their fellow workers, then that would open up the possibility of changing not just a single industry, but the whole world.

AKB48: Unionize and take back your lost love lives

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http://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2013/01/22/how-tos/akb48-unionize-and-take-back-your-lost-love-lives/#.UQ5ewt1VmjM

BY HIFUMI OKUNUKI

They started performing on stages in Tokyo’s Akihabara electronics district, and today their ubiquity is unrivaled. The current flavors of the month pepper the TV schedules and covers of weekly magazines all year round. In Tokyo, you can’t swing a carrot without hitting a giant poster of one or a bunch of the all-grinning, all-dancing “Vegetable Sisters.” AKB48 are, hands down, the busiest and most successful girl group in Japan.

They have spawned spinoffs in other cities: SKE48 from Nagoya’s Sakae district, NMB48 from Osaka’s Namba neighborhood and HKT48, from Fukuoka’s Hakata. Last year, their inspiration transcended national borders and a testy territorial dispute as the franchise set up shop in Shanghai as SNH48, hot on the heels of the group’s first foreign foray, Jakarta’s JKT48. Another offshoot, TPE48, is planned for Taipei.

The original AKB48 troupe now numbers 87 members (that’s including “trainees”), making it the largest pop group in the world. Among these teenagers and 20-somethings, cut-throat competition has arisen alongside gross disparities between the fortunes of the most popular, the less so, and those whose day on the big stage just never comes.

Their management prohibits the girls from having romantic relationships, with a contract clause stating that “Unrequited love is permissible, but you cannot return the affection.” Several members have been pushed to resign or “graduate” after photos leaked out revealing the girl was dating.

Quite recently, the much-loved Yuka Masuda announced her sudden resignation from the group after stepping over the no-love-life line. Photos splashed all over a weekly magazine suggested she had spent the night at a male celebrity’s home. Though not officially “dismissed,” it is clear that decisions in her personal life cost her her job.

Although not all scholars agree, I believe even celebrities such as AKB48 members are protected by labor standards law. This month I’d like to examine two questions: 1) Does the law permit chastity clauses? and 2) Can an employer fire someone for violating such a rule?

Labor contracts, like all contracts, are predicated on the assumption of agreement between two parties. But that does not mean that anything goes when it comes to their provisions. Four conditions must all be met to legitimize each and every term of a contract: kakuteisei (determinacy),jitsugen kanōsei (achievability), tekihōsei (legality) andshakaiteki datōsei (social justification).

It is the fourth, shakaiteki datōsei , that concerns us in the AKB48 case. This concept entails general ideals of morality and justice, specifically kōjo ryōzoku (public order and morality), a crucial and broadly ranging legal principle enshrined in Article 90 of the Civil Code.

Contract terms that violate kōjo ryōzoku are invalid. Textbook examples include: paying for a crime; terms that violate fundamental human rights, such as gender bias; terms that restrict individual freedom; and those that violate social morals such as human trafficking, prostitution or geisha provisions. While traditional geisha exist within the scope of the law, asking an employee to “entertain” a client does not.

Most would consider it an unjustifiable invasion of privacy if an ordinary company prohibited their employees from taking a lover. Apologists for the AKB48 chastity clause argue that a girl’s value as an idol is compromised if it becomes known she has a boyfriend because her job is to “sell fantasies” to male fans. In fact, quite a few fans have commented on chat sites that they felt “betrayed” and “lied to” by AKB members who began dating.

I have a different view. Teenage girls and women in their 20s are at an age when their love life is the most exciting — a time that’s arguably the best chance to experience the ups and downs of the adventures of love and life. Their managers and producers surely don’t have the right to deprive them of that opportunity.

Some might say that if the girls want love, they shouldn’t join the group in the first place. This argument could be and is used by the worst corporate exploiters to justify just about any illegal contract provision.

So can you be fired for violating such a provision, for a reason grounded in your private life? Dismissals must have “objective and rational grounds” (Labor Contract Law, Article 16).

Asahikawa District Court on Dec. 27, 1989, ruled against a company (Hankiko Setsubi) that fired a female employee but not a male one after discovering the two were committing adultery.

Management reasoned that even if it does not interfere with work, “adultery adversely affects the company’s moral order, hurts coworkers’ motivation, and makes the president lose face.” While acknowledging that the woman’s actions were illegal and immoral, the court said that only specific damage to the running of the company constitutes hurting the workers’ moral order or motivation, a condition not met in this case.

Thus judicial precedent prohibits disciplinary action for problematic personal behavior that has no connection with work duties. Meanwhile, only if such personal actions severely damage a company’s overall reputation can they be considered to have seriously damaged the company’s moral order.

It is clear that the AKB48 chastity clause fails to meet the court’s criteria for legitimate grounds for dismissal.

To members of AKB48: If you want to fight for your right to live and love freely, you’ll need solidarity with your fellow band members, so why not establish a union? The “Vegetable Sisters” should be sisters in deed as well as name — not rivals.

Hifumi Okunuki teaches constitutional and labor law at Daito Bunka University and Jissen Women’s University, among others. She also serves as paralegal for Zenkoku Ippan Tokyo General Union. Usually on the third Tuesday of the month, Hifumi looks at a famous case in Japan’s legal history to illustrate an important principle in labor law. 

Labor law protects expectant and new mothers — to a point

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http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/fl20121016lp.html

 

Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2012

By HIFUMI OKUNUKI

I had a labor consultation with a woman who said: “The other day I told my company I was pregnant. My boss asked me to quit because the firm can’t afford to give me time off. One of my coworkers once resigned before giving birth but I want to stay on. Do I have to quit now that I am pregnant?”

The short answer is no. The longer answer is: no way.

Today’s labor laws do not permit the dismissal of a woman for being pregnant; neither do they allow her to be asked to resign. Labor Standards Law Article 65, Sections 1 and 2, mandate maternity leave as follows: “An employee may take the six weeks before birth as leave, while the employer must not allow her to work for the eight weeks after birth (excepting the last two weeks of that period, during which she may work if she requests it and has a doctor’s note permitting it).”

Article 19 also prohibits dismissal for the first 30 days upon her return to work. Equal Employment Opportunity Law Article 9 also shifts the burden onto the employer to prove that the reason for dismissing a pregnant woman is something other than the pregnancy itself. Without proof, the dismissal is invalid.

The article also prohibits any kind of disadvantageous treatment of women who take maternity leave as prescribed. Such prohibited treatment includes pay cuts, demotions, status changes from seishainregular to irregular employee, transfers, suspensions, lower bonus payment, bad evaluations, etc.

Two cases dominate jurisprudence and the law journals on this issue.

Nihon Schering K.K. is the Japanese subsidiary of a German pharmaceutical firm. Twenty-four employees sued the company for lost wages due to one clause of a labor management agreement (LMA) between the drug maker and the No. 2 Union that read: “Any days off for maternity leave, menstruation leave, childcare leave or paid holidays will be counted when calculating attendance rates, and any worker with less than 80 percent attendance will be denied promotions and pay raises.”

The Supreme Court’s Petty Bench ruled on Dec. 14, 1989, that “any provision that suppresses the right to holidays guaranteed by law violates kōjo (public morals) and is therefore invalid,” a victory for the plaintiffs.

Fourteen years later, the same bench cited the above case to reach a more ambiguous verdict.

An employee of Toho Gakuen (Toho Academy) sought to recover two bonuses denied her because she took eight weeks off for maternity leave and then reduced her work hours because of subsequent childcare commitments. On Dec. 4, 2003, the judge overturned the wage regulation that deprived her of the bonuses but permitted the school to prorate the bonus, reducing it in proportion to the hours and days she was off.

The court’s logic was based on Article 65 of Labor Standards Law, which does not require that the leave itself be paid, so long as there are no other deductions. (This is similar to the law on strikes, which prohibits any disadvantageous treatment but does not require that the time struck be paid.)

The cut in her bonus payments proved to be deep for the woman working at Toho Academy, since the bonuses had accounted for more than 30 percent of her annual income. Such cuts to income discourage us women to have and raise children — not good news in a society that needs more children.

Maybe the Supreme Court should take a bit broader view and consider the financial “labor pains” involved in having a child.

Hifumi Okunuki teaches constitutional and labor law at Daito Bunka University and Jissen Women’s University, among others. She also serves as paralegal for Zenkoku Ippan Tokyo General Union. On the third Tuesday of each month, Hifumi looks at a famous case in Japan’s legal history to illustrate an important principle in labor law.

A World Without Labor Unions; in unions’ defense

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http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/fl20121023hs.html

Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2012
A world without labor unions

Re: “The Berlitz labor cartel” (Have Your Say, Sept. 25), a response to “With Berlitz beaten but not bowed, union fights on” by Patrick Budmar (Zeit Gist, Sept. 4):

The writer of this is someone who has withheld their name for good reason. Everything he or she wrote is spot off.

The suggestion that the union “chose to hold the company hostage rather than to leave and find a better offer” displays a misunderstanding of unions’ role in the workplace and in society.

A union is the only way for both parties (employers and employees) to negotiate on equal standing. If there were no unions, what would be the result?

We need not imagine. Let’s take a look at history, before unions fought for us. There was no minimum wage, no pension, no insurance, long hours, and brutal child labor was the norm. Those children were “free to work somewhere else,” as the author says.

It was the union movement that won us a minimum wage, pensions, health care, labor rights (including the right to strike) and abolished child labor. It is the right of the people to form unions and negotiate collectively with their employers. Their fight helps all of us, not just their coworkers.

The author calls it “the Berlitz labor cartel” but missed the fact that firms operate as cartels on many occasions. Consider price-fixing among automakers in Japan. NTN Corp. (www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nb20120518b2.html) was found guilty of price-fixing. Toshiba recently paid $30 million to settle a price-fixing suit in the U.S. This is cartel behavior, not collectively demanding a pay increase and open-ended employment.

All workers have the right to strike. If midway through a meal, the waiter took my food and asked me to pay more, I would inform him that it’s management that sets prices, not customers. Also, strikers do not get paid during the period they are striking, so the analogy is false.

If my waiter went on strike, I would happily miss my meal in order to join them in asking management to increase prices so the workers are better paid.

AMJID ALAM
Executive President, Tozen (Zenkoku Ippan Tokyo General Union) ALTs Union

Send comments on these issues and story ideas to community@japantimes.co.jp.

Foreigners on welfare face pension burden

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http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20121017a1.html

Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2012

Planned end to premium waiver sparks cries of discrimination

Kyodo

The Japan Pension Service wants to drop the pension premium waiver for foreigners who are on welfare, effectively ending a long-held practice of treating them the same as Japanese, sources said Tuesday.

The government-linked body that runs the public pension systems has drawn up a guideline to end the uniform premium waiver for foreigners on welfare, drawing immediate fire from human rights activists who liken the end of the exemption to discrimination based on nationality.

In fiscal 2010, roughly 1.41 million households were on public assistance, including around 42,000 headed by foreign residents.

In a reply dated Aug. 10 to an inquiry from a local-level pension service office, the Japan Pension Service said that “public assistance benefits are provided to foreigners living in poverty just like those provided to Japanese nationals, but foreigners are not actually covered by the law on public assistance.

“Under the national pension law, the (premium) waiver is accorded only to those subject to the law on public assistance,” the service said. “It is thus not applicable to foreigners.”

The Kokumin Nenkin basic pension system is designed mainly for people not employed by corporations, including self-employed workers, students and part-time workers.

The national pension law stipulates that the premium waiver applies to people who are on welfare benefits paid under the public assistance law or via a welfare ministry ordinance.

Presumably because the public assistance law stipulates that only Japanese nationals are eligible for welfare, the Japan Pension Service drew up the new guideline that drops the foreigner exemption.

But in practice, certain qualified foreign residents, including those with permanent residency and with Japanese spouses, are receiving public assistance benefits thanks to a humanitarian decision by the welfare ministry in 1954 that municipal governments must accept applications from foreign nationals in dire need of support.

In 1982, when the nationality clause in the national pension law was abolished, foreign residents became legally eligible to join the public pension system.

The requirements for foreigners to receive public assistance and the amount of benefits they can receive are the same as what applies for Japanese, because the system is geared to ensure the minimum standard of living.

The Japan Pension Service believes that while all Japanese on welfare should qualify for the full waiver of premiums for the state-run pension plan, foreign residents who have jobs but are on welfare due to low income should not. They may have to pay some of the legally required premiums based on their income level.

For example, a foreigner living alone who earned ¥570,000 or more the previous year may now be required to pay some of the around ¥180,000 in annual premiums, if the current waiver is revoked.

“JPS and the welfare ministry must have been aware that foreign residents on welfare nationwide have been waived from the national pension premiums,” said Shinichiro Nakashima, head of Kumustaka, a group based in the city of Kumamoto that supports foreign residents.

“Foreign residents who won’t be able to pay the premium could end up with no pension benefits in the future. (The government) should abolish the nationality clause in the public assistance law, and treat foreign residents the same as Japanese.”

An official at the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, which oversees the pension service, said that “it’s not that we’ve changed the policy. We are just restoring what should have been the case. While it depends on income levels, I would think many will still see payments entirely waived in reality” even under the new guideline.

Tokyo Area GABA workers unionize

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2012年9月28日

〒151-0062
東京都渋谷区元代々木町 30-13 グラスシティ元代々木 4F
03-5790-7000 (TEL)
03-5790-7145 (FAX)
株式会社 GABA
代表取締役社長 増田崇之殿
GABA Corporation President Takayuki Masuda

全国一般東京ゼネラルユニオン
執行委員長 ルイス・カーレット 全
国一般東京ゼネラルユニオン GABA 労働組合
執行委員長 ジェイソン・コームス
Zenkoku Ippan Tokyo General Union
President Louis Carlet
Zenkoku Ippan Tokyo General Union
GABA Workers Union
President Jason Combs

組合結成通知並びに団体交渉の申し入れ
Notice of Union Formation and Demand for Collective Bargaining

拝啓 秋冷の候、貴社におかれましてはますますご盛栄のこととお喜び申し上げます。
We hope your business is doing well this autumn.

私たちは、貴社に勤務する下記の講師が、全国一般東京ゼネラルユニオン(以下、「組合」と いう)の下に全国一般東京ゼネラルユニオン GABA 労働組合(以下、「支部」という)という支 部組合を結成したことを通知いたします。貴社は本日より、組合員の雇用・労働条件並びにその他 労働条件に関連する事項について、当組合並びに支部と協議決定する義務のあることを申し添えま す。
We hereby notify you that the instructors below have formed the Zenkoku Ippan Tokyo General Union GABA Workers Union (hereafter, “local”) under the Zenkoku Ippan Tokyo General Union (hereafter, “union”). We ask that management negotiate in good faith during collective bargaining regarding members’ employment and working conditions as well as other matters related to working conditions.

当組合並びに支部は、良好なる労使関係を確立するために誠意を持って交渉に臨む所存です。それ故、 貴社は不当労働行為など行うことなく、速やかに当組合並びに支部との団体交渉に応じられるよう要請いた します。なお、団体交渉を拒否することは、労働組合法第7条に違反する不当労働行為であることを念のた めに申し添えておきます。
In order to create good labor-management relations, our union intends to negotiate in good faith. We call on the company to respond promptly to our request for collective bargaining so as not to commit an unfair labor practice under labor law. We remind the company that declining a request for collective bargaining is a violation of Article 7 of Trade Union Law.

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The British Council: friend or foe?

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/oct/08/british-council-education-training
Educators working overseas complain that the venerable quango’s business interests have turned it into a rival
The Guardian, 

A few years ago, when the CfBT Education Trust, a non-profit organisation that runs schools and education services, was looking to expand its operations in Malaysia, its chief executive, Neil McIntosh, arranged a meeting with the local high commissioner. When he got there, though, he was disappointed to see that the commissioner had brought along a representative of one of CfBT’s main competitors. “He was a bit put out that I should see the British Council in that light,” says McIntosh.

The British Council, it’s widely thought, is a thoroughly good thing. It is the epitome of soft power, a long-established arm of the Foreign Office that promotes British interests not with bombs and guns, but through culture and education. A big part of its job is to promote UK education: by marketing domestic universities to international students, or providing local intelligence to any education provider that wants to work overseas. Officials often suggest the council’s local office should be first port of call for any company looking to enter a new market.

Consequently, McIntosh admits, criticising it feels a little bit like “crying foul on someone’s much-loved grandmother”. But the British Council isn’t just a charity. It is also an increasingly ambitious player in the global market for English languageteaching, exam provision and other education services. It holds a one-third share in the International English Language Testing System, for example, and takes on contracts to train teachers for overseas governments.

Now questions are being asked about whether such activities conflict with the council’s role in supporting other providers, like CfBT. Says McIntosh: “It makes it more difficult for us to compete with America and Australia, whose diplomatic missions represent their education systems more comprehensively.”

McIntosh is not alone in his views. “Every company I know has concerns about the British Council,” says Patrick Watson, managing director of Montrose Public Affairs, which works with a number of firms. “It uses its monopoly position aggressively: if you don’t play ball, it can simply ignore you or decide to collaborate with someone else.”

One business leader even says: “The British Council doesn’t really enable British education exports: it inhibits them.”

The council itself rejects such criticism robustly. Dr Jo Beall, its director of education, points to all the work it does to promote British education: enabling academic partnerships with India and Brazil; telling the world that UK universities are open for business. “It’s because the British Council has been flying the UK flag for nearly 80 years that there’s such a strong market in the first place,” she says.

The root of the row lies in the council’s unusual funding model. It is a quango, sponsored by the Foreign Office, that exists to promote British education and culture. That, in ministers’ minds, includes supporting private education firms seeking export opportunities.

But as its grant has been cut, the organisation has had to shore up its finances by selling its own education services: English language teaching, teacher training, and providing exams. Overseas governments seeking a bit of British educational expertise often appeal to the British Council for help. In some cases, it steps in to provide that help itself, and rivals complain there are no clear criteria explaining which contracts it will pass to the industry and which it will hang on to. “Human nature being what it is,” says Andrew Fitzmaurice, chief executive of international schools firm Nord Anglia, “I suspect they’re always going to keep the best ones.”

The upshot of all this is that the British Council sometimes promotes others and sometimes promotes itself. Many companies are wary of asking for its support, either because they are reluctant to share information with a competitor, or because they think the council would be unwilling to help. “I never gave the British Council a moment’s consideration as a source of information and support,” says Kevin McNeany, chair of Orbital Education, who has worked in the sector for more than 40 years. “Even if they had information of commercial value, it would first be filtered through its own internal networks to see if it could be monetised for in-house benefit.”

The critics have other complaints, too. The British Council’s not-for-profit status means it is exempt from corporation tax in many countries, so in some cases can undercut competitors. And in some regions it also works closely with the British embassy. “I am never going to get a meeting with the ambassador at short notice,” says one angry executive. “For the British Council, it’s just a short walk along the corridor.”

Actually, British Council spokespeople point out, it co-locates with the Foreign Office in fewer than a quarter of the countries where it works, and it does so only for reasons of security or cost. And they say there are protocols in place to stop the council’s commercial and charitable arms from sharing information. Its tax advantages, they point out, merely reflect the fact that it doesn’t make a profit, but uses all income to support its work promoting Britain abroad. Its chief executive, Martin Davidson, is very proud of all this, describing the set-up as “a model of entrepreneurial public service”.

Another complaint, though, is that the council’s commercial goals could affect its advice. Its Education UK website is intended to be the front first port of call for international students looking to study in the UK. But the most visible listings are those schools and colleges that have paid for the privilege: potential students are less likely to discover the course best for them, more likely to see the one with the biggest marketing budget. “Institutions are welcome to pay for extra promotional services,” Beall admits. But she rejects any suggestion that this means the site is biased towards certain institutions, and points out that the council makes no money from the website.

“The problem is not created by the British Council itself,” says McIntosh. “It’s created by the government, which requires the council to fund itself by competing with the organisations that it’s supposed to represent. That is not a sustainable position.”

Beall, though, rejects this entirely. “I really resent that idea that we should move out of this [commercial] space,” she says. “It’s tantamount to a private university saying that all public universities should vacate the market.”

The government does not seem convinced of the case for reform. In 2010, a group of education bosses led by McIntosh wrote to Francis Maude, cabinet secretary, about the British Council’s operations (as well as other quangos), requesting he take action. Maude promised no remedy. A delegation that met the trade minister Lord Green over the summer report a distinct lack of concern. Whatever the gripes of education businesses, the British Council is here to stay.

40% of part-timers want regular work

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Saturday, Aug. 25, 2012
Jiji
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nb20120825a1.html

More than 40 percent of part-time workers aged between 20 and 34 want full employment, according to the results of a government survey conducted in 2011.

The proportion of respondents looking for full-time work increased from some 30 percent in the previous survey, conducted in 2006, the Health, Welfare and Labor Ministry said Thursday.

The ratio stood at 57.3 percent for the 20-24 age bracket, up from 44.7 percent in the previous survey, followed by 41.8 percent for people 25 to 29, up from 30.6 percent, and 42.7 percent for the 30-34 bracket, up from 23.4 percent.

But overall, only 22.0 percent wanted to be full-time employees, because older workers enjoy the flexibility of part-time work, the ministry said.

The proportion of male part-timers longing for full-time positions came to 29.4 percent, far exceeding the 18.8 percent for female workers.

Asked why they wanted to become regular employees, 76.9 percent of all respondents said they want to earn more, while 66.3 percent said they want job security and 27.6 percent said they want more experience.

Multiple answers were allowed.

The ministry said many part-time workers in their 20s and 30s aspire to become regular employees, possibly because many of them were not able to get full-time work in the fallout from the bursting of the bubble economy in the early 1990s and the Lehman Brothers collapse in 2008.

The survey is conducted roughly every five years. The most recent poll covered 14,835 part-timers across the country excluding the three disaster-hit prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima.

The valid response rate was 69.0 percent.

Welfare pays better

The minimum hourly wage is expected to remain lower than per-hour welfare benefits in six prefectures even after planned increases later this year.

The six prefectures are Hokkaido, Miyagi, Tokyo, Kanagawa, Osaka and Hiroshima. Wage panels in 11 prefectures, including these six, where minimum hourly wage is currently less than welfare benefits have proposed wage hikes ranging from ¥7 to ¥14.

In the five other prefectures — Aomori, Saitama, Chiba, Kyoto and Hyogo — the minimum wage will be raised to the same level as welfare or higher.

During discussions by the prefectural panels, employers expressed concern about increased personnel costs.

The revised minimum wage will be applied in October or later after being OK’d by the heads of local bureaus of the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry. The new base will be ¥719 in Hokkaido, ¥685 in Miyagi and ¥850 in Tokyo.

Courts back workers’ rock-solid right to strike

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http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/fl20120717lp.html

By HIFUMI OKUNUKI

“Sensei, Japan is such a safe country because there are no strikes. Right?” A student at the university where I teach blindsided me with this remark the other day.

Striking is the main dispute tool for labor unions to realize worker demands. Article 28 of Japan’s Constitution guarantees the right to “workers’ collective action.” This means strikes. Although dispute action can cause enormous damage to employers and third parties, the Constitution protects such action as a fundamental human right.

The drafters’ thinking was that most workers find themselves in a vulnerable and submissive position vis-a-vis management and only by guaranteeing the right to strike do they have any say in setting working conditions or any chance to improve their economic position.

All attempts to restrict the right to strike have been struck down, so to speak, as unconstitutional. The Trade Union Law states clearly that legitimate strikes are “exempt from all civil and criminal liability.” So what is a “legitimate strike?”

Few courts have even taken up the matter because the right is so well protected that, barring violence or malicious threat, management has little hope of winning damages. So let me first introduce a rare “illegal strike” verdict: the Shosen Case of May 6, 2002, in Tokyo District Court.

This bookstore sued its labor union, claiming its strike was illegal. The union struck and picketed over shuntō (spring labor offensive) demands, but to no avail. They plastered the entrance doors, show windows and exterior of the shop with stickers and posters announcing the strike, blocked all entrances with picketers, occupied and blocked the sales floor and used a megaphone to harass any potential customer daring to enter, screaming insults such as “bakayaro!” (“idiot!”). Some union members played mah-jongg at the entrance while others surrounded and dragged picket-line-crossing customers out of the store.

The retailer had enough nonunion staff to sell books but couldn’t because the union was creating an atmosphere less than conducive to business.

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In ‘right-to-work’ Japan, employees should also have the right to rest

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By HIFUMI OKUNUKI

According to the tagline for the 1991 film “City Slickers,” “All you need in life is love, courage and paid holidays.” Indeed, some of us may find meaning to our lives through single-minded devotion to our jobs, but without leisure time our bodies and minds would inevitably putter out. Taken to extremes, we may even start to wonder what we are living for.

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