Nova

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

Ex-NOVA teachers file complaint about getting laid off by new owners

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About 20 foreign language teachers formerly employed by NOVA Corp. filed a complaint with a labor standards inspection office here on Friday, claiming that they were illegally fired by the companies that took over the failed language school chain.

“Unfair dismissal!” chanted the former NOVA teachers as they joined a prep rally held by [Tokyo Nambu sister union] the General Union in front of the Osaka Chuo Labor Standards Inspection Office in Osaka’s Chuo-ku on Friday before they filed the complaint with the office.

Nagoya-based G.communication Group bought out NOVA after it filed for protection from creditors in October last year, leaving NOVA under bankruptcy proceedings.

However, G.communication Group fired about 800 former NOVA teachers at the end of December, overturning an earlier agreement in November that the company would in principle hire all the former NOVA teachers who wanted to work for the new employer, according to the General Union.

Furthermore, the company refused to renew employment contracts for about 200 other teachers, leaving more than 1,000 teachers unemployed. The dismissed teachers claim that the company violated the Labor Standards Law.

“The company violated the law in that it did not sign employment contracts with the teachers when they started working in November. The company’s dismissal procedures also breach the law in that it notified the teachers of their dismissal via e-mail and without notice,” said a representative of the General Union.

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/national/news/20080215p2a00m0na014000c.html

Police targeting ex-Nova president

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Police are investigating the former president of the now-bankrupt language school chain Nova Corp. for possible breach of trust over a project that brought profits to an affiliate he controlled, sources said.

Nozomu Sahashi, 56, is suspected of having paid exorbitant prices for a server used in video-phone hookups for language lessons, sources said.

Police suspect he used his position to reap profits for his affiliated company, although the deal resulted in about a 500-million-yen loss to Nova, the sources said.

Investigators are trying to determine if Sahashi can be held for aggravated breach of trust stipulated under the corporate law, they said.

http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200802130084.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

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.

Foreign teachers still waiting for jobs

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AUSTRALIANS are among hundreds of foreign teachers who had been hoping for fresh jobs to start the new year but remain unemployed after a firm taking over part of the collapsed Nova language school chain stopped hiring.

Nova, whose schools were once ubiquitous across Japanese cities, filed for bankruptcy protection in October, leaving thousands of foreign teachers without income.

Nagoya-based G.communication was selected by Nova’s rehabilitation administrators to take over the running of some schools and had hired 1647 foreign teachers by today.

But the company said it was also rejecting applications of some 600 foreign instructors from Nova.

G.communication plans to open only 126 of the 600 schools originally operated by Nova throughout the nation, the company said.

The diversified corporation already runs English schools in northern Japan along with other businesses such as restaurant chains.

“Other companies in the group also have needs for workers,” the statement said.

The company acknowledged that most of the 600 rejected teachers had hoped to start working from January.

The firm had given them ¥150,000 ($1508) each in financial support for the holiday season, with many of the teachers taking trips home.

Nova had an estimated 400,000 students and 6000 employees on its books, 4500 of them foreigners – many of them young people looking to spend a few years in Japan.

Embassies of English-speaking nations had started helplines for former Nova teachers, some of whom had declared they were ready to offer language lessons in exchange for food.

Foreigners with few skills other than speaking their native languages were able to make a comfortable living teaching in Japan at the height of the 1980s economic boom, but the jobs have since become less lucrative.

Nova was founded in 1981 and became the leader in the industry. It filed for protection from creditors four months after the government ordered it to halt part of its operations over insufficient refunds for students.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22975092-31037,00.html

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.

Up to ex-NOVA 800 teachers left out in cold by new owners

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Up to 800 foreign language teachers formerly employed by NOVA Corp. will not be hired by the failed English conversation school chain’s new owners.

Officials at Nagoya-based G.communication Group said they are looking into finding employment for around 200 ex-NOVA teachers with affiliate companies, leaving the remaining 600 or so unemployed.

G.communication Group bought out NOVA after it filed for protection from creditors on Oct. 26, leaving the failed conversation chain to go through bankruptcy proceedings exactly one month after its collapse.

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/national/news/20071225p2a00m0na009000c.html

‘Eikaiwa’ firms face Nova fallout

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Too big, too fast, and with too little quality ? that’s the consensus view of many industry analysts on former language-school market leader Nova Corp., whose collapse left over 420,000 students and 4,000 non-Japanese instructors without an “eikaiwa” home.

The Nova affair has already hurt many people: Hundreds of instructors have had to leave Japan and many of those who stayed are struggling to get by ? the National Union of General Workers has even set up a “meals for English lessons” deal to help teachers and students. Meanwhile, customers who paid up-front fees to Nova are struggling to regain some of their substantial losses.

After Nova filed for bankruptcy with some ¥43.9 billion in debt, preparatory school operator G.communication took over some of its schools and rehired less than half of Nova’s former employees.

According to industry observers, shock waves from the crash are likely to be felt across the whole industry ? which employs a sizable percentage of Japan’s expat community ? and beyond.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20071211zg.html