Japan Pension Service, an organization set up to take over the work of the Social Insurance Agency, will start operations Friday. Though the new entity will attempt to regain trust of the public by tackling problems such as the pension records fiasco, it faces many hurdles.
Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama met the 13 people chosen to be directors of the new entity at the Prime Minister’s Office last Friday.
“One of the driving forces behind the shift of power [the election of the DPJ-led government] was the pension record fiasco,” Hatoyama said. “I want this entity to be one that gives priority to the interests of subscribers.”
Pension
‘Pension falsification rampant’ in Ibaraki Pref.
Some social insurance offices in Ibaraki Prefecture falsified company managers’ average monthly earnings that will be used as the basis for calculating their pensions, and deleted 10 percent of companies’ delinquent accounts from official records, according to sources close to the office.
The sources said some of the offices falsified data to make their pension premium collection rates appear higher than they really were. The sources also said there was a so-called Ibaraki rule, which stated that only monthly salaries of management-level employees would be lowered and the offices had been provided with software that had been programmed to automatically calculate the delinquent accounts to be deleted.
According to pension insurance premium collection records for fiscal 2005, which The Yomiuri Shimbun acquired, of the 1.4 billion yen in past delinquent accounts, 145.02 million yen was erased at the Tsuchiura Social Insurance Office. At the Mito Minami Social Insurance Office, 84.08 million yen, or about 4 percent of its 2 billion yen worth of delinquent accounts, was deleted.
The two offices’ deleted amounts far outstripped the 150,000 yen to 6 million yen deleted at the other three offices in the prefecture the same fiscal year.
According to the sources, the office summoned managers of companies that had failed to pay premiums and first unsettled them by seizing their companies’ deposits and savings before asking them to sign an agreement to “pay the arrears,” which actually amounted to an agreement to take part in the delinquent account deletion scheme.
The sources said pension office staff persuaded many of the managers to lower the salaries listed in the pension records. For example, an official would ask a manager, “Your executive salary is registered as 500,000 yen here but it’s actually 200,000 yen, isn’t it?” adding, “If you agree to correct the salary, your company’s delinquent account total will be reduced by 10 million yen.”
The Ibaraki rule restricted the targets of this “persuasion” to corporate managers and their families, as it was seen as unfair for regular employees to have their future pension payouts reduced.
The software used to calculate which delinquent accounts should be deleted was distributed to pension officials responsible for collecting the premiums via USB memory sticks in fiscal 2002.
Ibaraki Prefecture’s collection rate for employee pension insurance premiums was ranked 46th among the nation’s 47 prefectures from fiscal 2001 to fiscal 2003. But it shot up to the 37th in fiscal 2004 and 24th in fiscal 2005.
Brace for a possible spring shock
When spring approaches next year, many foreigners in Japan could be in for a rude awakening: From April 1, all those who apply to extend their visa in Japan will be asked to show proof of enrollment in one or other of Japan’s main national health systems, the shakai hoken (social health insurance and pension) or kokumin kenko hoken (national health insurance).
When that time comes, it won’t help to present details of your own private health plan, or to argue about the inefficiencies of the system for foreigners. Japan has had a mandatory universal health care system in place since 1961, meaning that any resident over 20 must be enrolled, whether employed or unemployed, Japanese or non-Japanese.
If you are working for a company in Japan, chances are that you are (or need to be) enrolled in shakai hoken, in which you pay half of your health insurance premiums and your company pays the rest. There isn’t much ambiguity about shakai hoken: If a company employs more than five people, and an employee is working more than 30 hours a week for a period longer than 2 months, the company is obligated to submit paperwork for an employee’s health insurance and pension to the Social Insurance Agency within five days of hiring. With shakai hoken comes the kosei nenkin, or pension plan; the two are a set, and enrollment is mandatory whether you plan to retire in Japan or not.
Meanwhile, people who are unemployed, self-employed, employed by a small firm or retired should be enrolled in kokumin kenko hoken (national health insurance). People paying into this system have to sign up on their own for kokumin nenkin (the national pension) at their city ward office.
On the positive side, the new guidelines will at least force the issue into the open so that there are fewer people … blindsided by back payments, says Yujiro Hiraga, president of [Zenkoku Ippan Tokyo General Union’s predecessor] the National Union of General Workers, Tokyo Nambu. “I think it will be a good source of pressure for employers to enroll their staff.” But, he adds, “The negative effect is that it might encourage more secrecy among people and companies without it.”
He notes that the number of employers who enroll their staff in insurance is shrinking with the economic downturn, and that things could get worse: A labor ministry survey last year found that over 100,000 companies had not enrolled their staff in shakai hoken as of March 2008.
NTT fails to pay pension premiums
The Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. group [a company one third owned by the Japanese government] failed to pay to the state a portion of pension premiums of about 4,000 employees over more than six years to August 2003 despite deducting the money from the workers’ salaries.
Sources attributed the failure to clerical errors. The group has already filed a request to a government third-party panel that the pension records be corrected to ensure the employees receive the benefits they are entitled to, officials said.
According to the sources, discrepancies were found between pension records maintained by the Social Insurance Agency and those at the group’s employee pension fund. No records were held by the agency for about 20 short-term contract workers.
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200908240075.html
Social Insurance Agency reprimands collection chief over altered records
The Social Insurance Agency has taken disciplinary action against a Tokyo social insurance office worker for altering records to understate people’s standard monthly earnings, which form the basis for calculating pension insurance premiums.
It is the only case in which the agency has admitted alteration of records by a worker, and the first time for disciplinary action to be taken over record falsification.
When questioned over his actions, the worker, a former collection section head, reportedly said, “I was trying to lower the number of businesses that defaulted on their insurance premiums. Another worker gave people the same treatment.” He added that a business owner had implored him to see if anything could be done about overdue insurance premiums.
In addition to action against the former collection section chief, the agency also handed a severe warning to a former worker in the same section who played a part in altering records under instruction from the collection chief.
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20090801p2a00m0na010000c.html
New law: no dues, no visa
On a drab, rainy Sunday in June, a group of foreign workers gathered at the office of the National Union of General Workers Tokyo Nambu in Shimbashi to discuss an equally drab topic: social insurance. According to a new immigration law passed by the Diet earlier this month, foreign residents will be required to show proof of enrollment in Japan’s health insurance program in order to renew or apply for a visa after April 1, 2010.
A handful of attendees were young, but most were middle-aged or approaching retirement age. Many had been working in Japan for years and had never been told anything about insurance, while others were aware of the program but had been dissuaded by their employers from joining it.
Louis Carlet, deputy secretary of Nambu, laid it down for everyone in the room to understand. There are a few basic things that all foreigners in Japan have to know, he explained: first, that everyone over the age of 20 in Japan is required to enroll in an approved Japanese government health insurance scheme and pension fund. If you are under 75 and working at a company that employs more than five people, this most likely means the shakai hoken (social insurance) program; if you are unemployed, self-employed or retired, the equivalent system is the kokumin kenko hoken and kokumin nenkin (national health insurance and pension). The only people exempt are sailors, day laborers, and those working for companies employing less than five people, or for firms without a permanent address (e.g. a film set).
The two systems cover different ground, all of which is explained in detail at www.sia.go.jp/e/ehi.html. Roughly, shakai hoken consists of two parts: kenko hoken (health insurance), which covers 70 percent of your medical costs and 60 percent of lost wages due to illness, and kosei nenkin (pension insurance), which provides a pension after age 65 for those who have paid into the system. The two are inseparable, and anyone enrolled in shakai hoken through their employer automatically pays into both. The kokumin kenko hoken (national health insurance) and kokumin nenkin (national pension) package offers similar coverage but is not provided through an employer.
The bottom line is that all residents of Japan (except those mentioned above) have to be enrolled in one or other of the two systems. The revised visa laws, therefore, should pose no threat to anyone’s visa renewal, because every foreigner in Japan should already be enrolled.
However, the reality is that most foreigners in Japan do not have either form of insurance. For example, a 2004 survey by Hiroshi Kojima of the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research found that only 28.3 percent of Japanese Brazilians in Iwata City, Shizuoka Pref., had any kind of health insurance, and that of these only a third were enrolled in shakai hoken. Another survey in 2009 found that just one out of 27 manufacturing companies had enrolled its foreign employees in workers’ compensation, leaving thousands of foreigners ineligible for any form of assistance when the economic downturn hit Japan last year, leading to mass layoffs.
Foreign workers often hear a litany of reasons why they should not be enrolled in shakai hoken, or are simply not told about it at all. Employers would have a much tougher time leaving their Japanese staff off the system, argues Carlet, as many associate shakai hoken with a certain social status — those left out of the system tend to be in insecure employment such as day labor and very short-term contract work. For many Japanese workers, nonenrollment implies that their company either doesn’t value them as a long-term employee or simply doesn’t have the funds to cover the cost of insurance.
30,000 people in Japan unaware they are qualified to receive pensions: survey
An estimated 30,000 people in Japan without pensions are unaware that they are qualified to receive them, a survey by the Social Insurance Agency has indicated.
In many cases pension premium payment records exist while the beneficiaries remain unknown, and there have also been cases in which social insurance offices have told people they are not qualified to receive pensions.
The results of the survey indicate that there are many people who have been left without pensions despite having fulfilled the tough qualification requirement of paying premiums for 25 years in principle.
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/
20090702p2a00m0na007000c.html
Japan: Birthrate report shows it’s not getting any younger
A report says Japan’s ratio of children is now down to 13%, boding ill for the labor pool and pension funds.
Japan, which designates every May 5 as Children’s Day, had fewer children to celebrate the holiday for the 28th straight year, underscoring a demographic shift that could eventually wreak havoc on the world’s second-largest economy.A government report released this week says the number of children younger than 15 as of April 1 had fallen to about 17 million. Japan’s proportion of children — which has been declining for 35 years — now stands at just 13% of the country’s 128 million people.
In contrast, Japan’s elderly population is swelling. The number of people 65 and older has reached 22.5% and continues to climb.
The unprecedented changes in Japan’s population, fueled by low birthrates and one of the highest life expectancies in the world, are expected to strain government services and pension programs, as well as lead to labor shortages.
Japan now has the lowest percentage of children among 31 major countries, trailing Germany and Italy, according to the report by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. Children make up about 20% of the U.S. population and 17% in Japan’s neighbor South Korea.
The Japanese government’s efforts to boost the birthrate have been unsuccessful, and lawmakers have long been reluctant to relax the country’s strict immigration laws.
As part of his recent economic stimulus measures, Prime Minister Taro Aso called for new subsidies for childbirth costs and an expansion of neonatal intensive care units.
Officials have also stepped up programs that encourage the elderly to stay active and working. The government has been gradually extending the retirement age to 65 from 60, and is now pushing for an extension to 70. Tokyo also introduced a health insurance system last year to deal with ballooning medical costs for people 75 and older.
In a dozen years, the percentage of children is projected to drop to less than 11%, while the proportion of those 65 and older is likely to rise to 29%, according to government estimates. Japan’s population posted its sharpest decline ever last year, falling by 51,000.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-japan-birth6-2009may06,0,155406.story
Berlitz strike grows despite naysayers
Historic six-month action is starting to reap dividends
Despite scabs, naysayers and second-guessing pundits in the English-language media, Berlitz teachers are making history. With more than 100 teachers striking at dozens of schools around the Kanto region for over six months, the industrial action at Berlitz is now the largest sustained strike in Japan’s language school history.
Begunto demands a 4.6 percent base pay hike and a one-off bonus of one month’s salary. Berlitz Japan has not raised teachers’ base pay for 16 years. Three years ago, the language school lowered starting pay by over 10 percent per lesson, a cut only partially mitigated by a performance-based raise this year.
These demands are carried over from last year and are the two key demands of Begunto’s 2008 “shunto.”
Shunto is the traditional labor offensive that unions around the country wage each spring. It literally means “spring battle.” In Japan, even labor disputes invoke seasonal change.
Although management’s two proposals have thus far fallen short of Begunto’s demands, members are showing extraordinary energy and commitment to building momentum in the strike until the demands are met. Two language centers that have had particularly effective walkouts are the powerful Akasaka and Ikebukuro “shops.” More than half of all Berlitz schools in Kanto have participated in the strike.
In order to realize the strike demands, the union has organized and coordinated sophisticated surgical strikes, including bait-and-switch and strike feints. This keeps bosses on their toes.
Due to logistic issues, Begunto often can give written notice to the company only several minutes before the start of a particular strike. So management has had to scramble to cover lessons. They sometimes send and pay replacement teachers to cover lessons that end up not being struck, so nonstrikes can be as costly to the company as strikes. On other occasions, management sets up a team of replacement teachers at a nearby cafe, ready to rush over at a moment’s notice in case a strike occurs. The union calls these scabs-in-waiting “caffeine cowboys.” The company also assigns teachers to special “scab-watch” periods, meaning they get paid to wait in case a strike might happen.
Berlitz apparently prefers to spend a great deal of money and energy breaking the strike rather than resolving it by meeting the union’s reasonable demands. Their reasonableness becomes evident in light of Japan’s rising consumer price index (up 2.1 percent year-on-year in August), the slashing of starting pay in 2005 and the 16-year pay hike drought.
In addition to striking nearly every day, Begunto has held demonstrations at various schools around the Kanto Plain nearly every week and has toured Tokyo several times in a sound truck, announcing over a loud speaker, to make sure that the public knows why Berlitz teachers are fighting.
Begunto recently posted on the bulletin board of many Berlitz schools a document entitled “Definition of a Scab,” which caused some controversy. The definition actually belongs to author Jack London and includes such colorful hyperbole as:
“After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad, the vampire, He had some awful substance left with which He made a scab.
“A scab is a two-legged animal with a cork-screw soul, a water-logged brain, a combination backbone of jelly and glue. Where others have hearts, he carries a tumor of rotten principles.
“When a scab comes down the street, men turn their backs and angels weep in heaven, and the Devil shuts the gates of Hell to keep him out.”
That neither London nor Begunto meant the above definition in a literal way hardly needs mention. That union members are frustrated every time a fellow teacher chooses to help break the strike is why the document went up.
Union members never insist that every single Berlitz employee strike alongside his or her coworkers. They have only asked that teachers refrain from covering struck lessons when it is optional, as it often is. Scabs undermine the hard work, sacrifice and dedication of striking teachers and prolong resolution of the dispute.
One thing I learned from this strike is that there is no way to stay out of it. Each employee is forced by the circumstances of the strike to make a personal decision, which is either: 1) to join the strike; 2) to stay on the sidelines but refuse to cover lessons when it is optional; 3) to help break the strike by choosing to cover struck lessons.
Demonstrating its moderation in comparison with many labor unions, Begunto members have decided to consider only members of the third group as full-fledged “scabs.” In my opinion, it is a difference between courage and cowardice, principle versus pusillanimity.
It is easy to criticize the strike or the union, especially from the sidelines. What is hard is to get up and do something, to make a difference, fight for justice, take action right at the front lines. Begunto members do more than talk ? they act. The small number of teachers and staff who oppose the strike and/or the union will themselves benefit when the union wins higher pay for all.
In fact, thanks to the solidarity, dedication and hard work of union members – and a strike entails quite a bit of hard work – management has already made two pay hike offers, the latest on Sept. 26. At the time of writing, the union was widely expected to reject the second offer as far short of demands. Yet even this offer would never have happened without the efforts of the Begunto strikers.
Most surprisingly, the strike has been very successful as a union-building tool, drawing in many new members impressed that the union is taking positive action.
The right to strike is guaranteed by the Japanese Constitution, the Trade Union Law and international law. An individual has precious little negotiation strength vis-a-vis a big company (or even a small one). A union acting out of solidarity multiplies the negotiating position of its members exponentially. It also turns the workplace from an effective dictatorship into something approaching a democracy.
Teachers at Simul International – like Berlitz Japan a subsidiary of Benesse Corp. – are also striking, “simultaneously,” as it were. In their case, they are fighting for enrollment in Japan’s “shakai hoken” pension and health scheme. The union argues that Simul management is violating both the Health Insurance Law and Pension Insurance Law by failing to enroll its full-time employees.
So Benesse Group has its hands full with big strikes at two of its member companies at the same time.
It’s ironic that some employees, such as the teacher in the recent article in Tokyo’s Metropolis magazine (“Banding Together”), complain that the strike has not yet led to total victory when they themselves are part of the problem. I would say to them that we have not won yet because you have not joined the strike. Strength in numbers – again it hardly needs mentioning.
When more teachers join the strike rather than grumble that it “hasn’t worked yet,” the union will win.
Louis Carlet is Berlitz General Union’s Tokyo Representative, National Union of General Workers Tokyo Nambu.
Employers told to scam pensions
SIA worker admits having firms low-ball required premium levels
The scandal-hit Social Insurance Agency admitted Tuesday that a staff member had instructed companies falling short on premiums for the government-run pension program to falsely claim their employees’ monthly incomes were lower so the firms could pay less.
Corporate subscribers to the pension scheme must pay premiums equal to about 15 percent of their workers’ monthly incomes. Half of the premiums are put up by the firms and the remainder by the employees.
If a company reports its employees’ monthly incomes ? the benchmark to calculate premiums ? are lower than their actual incomes or the employees’ subscription periods are reported to be shorter than they really are, the firm’s premium burden is reduced.
The practice benefits both employers and the agency. The SIA can achieve a better record on premium-payment rates by member firms if their payment burdens are reduced.
Pension account holders whose entries are found to have undergone suspicious changes in income levels will be notified, according to the agency.