Author Karin Amamiya gives her views on the OWS movement in the monthly media magazine Tsukuru (December) and finds many similarities between Japan and the U.S. As opposed to a U.S. poverty rate of 15.1 percent, Japan’s is over 16 percent. The number of welfare recipients in Japan has shot past 2 million, and percentage of those in the work force holding nonregular jobs is at its highest level ever — 38.7 percent.
Last Thursday, a five-page article in Shukan Bunshun (Dec. 8) gave one of the gloomiest indications yet that the prolonged recession has had a pronounced effect on the incomes of Japan’s wage earners.
According to business consultant Masao Kitami, during 1997-2007, total wages declined by ¥20 trillion. “When people say Japan is becoming a society with a widening income gap,” he writes, “I tell them, we’ve descended into a ‘low-wage society.'”
Based on surveys of major corporations belonging to Keidanren (the Japan Business Federation), Kitami provides the latest data showing significant drops in wages between 2007-2010. The declines in the greater Tokyo region — where workers typically receive the highest remuneration in Japan — have been particularly steep. For males in their 50s, for example, the mean annual compensation dropped from ¥5.58 million in 2007 to ¥4.81 million in 2010. After withholdings, monthly take-home pay by younger salaried workers may be less than ¥200,000.
Kitami warns that once the annual incomes of males in their 50s living in Japan’s three main urban areas plummets below ¥5 million, the current social welfare model, based on a nuclear family composed of husband, wife and two children, is in danger of collapse.
All employees in Japan are entitled to paid leave, period
Reader A is employed by an agency and has been dispatched to a food processing company. The agency explained to A that she was not entitled to paid leave. However, other people directly employed by the food processing company enjoy 10 to 15 days paid holiday, and A has recently learned that those dispatched by other agencies to the same company also get paid leave.
In justifying the decision not to grant A paid leave, the agency said that A’s work schedule is irregular depending on the company calendar. However, A says she is working the night shift eight hours a day, 40 hours a week at least.
A, I assume that you have been dispatched legally, that is, based on the Act for Securing the Proper Operation of Worker Dispatching Undertakings and Improved Working Conditions for Dispatched Workers. Under this act, “worker dispatching” is defined as “causing a worker(s) employed by one person so as to be engaged in work for another person under the instruction of the latter, while maintaining his/her employment relationship with the former, but excluding cases where the former agrees with the latter that such worker(s) shall be employed by the latter” (Article 2). If this is the case, you have an employment relationship not with the company where you are dispatched (hakensaki) but with the agency that dispatches you (hakenmoto).
Paid leave is a right all employees are entitled to. A worker who has been employed continuously for six months from the day they were hired and has reported for work on at least 80 percent of their assigned workdays must be granted annual paid leave, according to Article 39 of the Labor Standards Act.
If you fulfill the conditions for paid leave, you have a legal right to demand it from your agency. If the agency still refuses, you should report them to the relevant labor standards bureau, who will conduct an investigation and either suggest or request the agency grant you paid leave if a violation is found.
Collective Bargaining Demands Submitted to Interac/Maxceed
Demands for collective bargaining were submitted today to the offices of Interac/Maxceed/Selti.
Remember that time you asked your boss about Shakai Hoken and you were ignored?
Or that time you asked about the possibility of a pay raise next year and you were brushed off?
Or that time you asked why you only get partial salary during the month of December even though the company gets the full amount from the Board of Education, and you never got a response to the email?
Well, unlike all those other times, a demands issued from a union as part of collective bargaining cannot legally be ignored.
The revolution in the Tokyo area starts now.
Who wants in?
We will be publishing some of our demands non-specific to individuals soon.
Stay tuned.
Solidarity,
Erich
Joytalk ALTs Unionized
Zenkoku Ippan Tokyo General Union and its Tozen ALTs Branch recently declared the existence of its Joytalk Shop to management and submitted a slate of 28 collective bargaining demands.
組合加入通知並びに団体交渉申し入れ書
Declaration of New Members, Request for Collective Bargaining
拝啓 貴社におかれましては、益々ご繁栄のこととお喜び申し上げます。
We hope your business is doing well.
さて、このたび私たちは、貴社従業員の全国一般東京ゼネラルユニオン（以下、「組合」という）ならびに全国一般東京ゼネラルユニオン東ゼンＡＬＴ支部（以下、「支部」という）への加入を通知いたします。貴社は本日より、組合員の雇用・労働条件ならびに、その他労働条件に関連する事項について、当組合なら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 inform you that some of your employees have joined Zenkoku Ippan Tokyo General Union (hereafter, “union,”) and Zenkoku Ippan Tokyo General Union Tozen ALTs (hereafter, “local”). From this day forth, your company is obligated to negotiate with the union and local regarding union members’ employment, working conditions and all items related to working conditions.
当組合ならびに支部は、良好な労使関係を確立するために、誠意をもって交渉に臨む所存です。貴社におかれましては、速やかに当組合ならびに支部との団体交渉に応じ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に該当することを念のために申し添えます。
Our union and local will negotiate in good faith in order to establish a positive labor-management relationship. Therefore, we ask that you promptly agree to collective bargaining with the union and local without committing any unfair labor practices. We also add that refusing collective bargaining is an unfair labor practice in violation of Article 7 of Trade Union Law.
以下の要求事項を議題とし、以下の日時・場所で、団体交渉を申し入れます。
We ask for collective bargaining regarding the demands listed below at the below date, time and venue.
なお、今回、要求事項が２８項目と多岐にわたりましたが、第1回団交でこのすべてについて話し合うことは到底できないことは承知しておりますので、どこから話し合うかという点についても、貴社と丁寧に協議を尽くしたいと考えています。組合員は、長期的に安定した雇用を確保し、引き続き貴社と良好な関係を築いていくことを望んでおります。当方の趣旨をお汲みとりいただきますよう、何卒宜しくお願いいたします。
We understand that it is impossible to discuss all 28 demands at the first collective bargaining session. We would like to negotiate these demands with you carefully and thoroughly. Union members hope to build and maintain a positive relationship with management based on long-term job security.
…
３．要求事項 Demands
安定した雇用について On job security…
1. Management eliminate temporary employment status for all union members, recognizing open-ended employment with no deterioration in working conditions in order to give members job security.
会社は、安定した雇用を実現するため、全組合員に対し、労働条件を悪化することなく、有期雇用の雇用形態を廃止し、期間の定めのない雇用を認める。
事前協議について On prior consultation …
2. Management inform the local and union well in advance of any changes to working conditions, management, terms of employment or shugyo kisoku work rules. Management negotiate and obtain agreement with union and local before implementing any such changes.
会社は、組合員の従来の契約内容・労働条件を変更する場合、また就業規則を変更する場合、事前に時間的な余裕をもって組合ならびに支部に通知し、協議の上、同意を得て実施すること。
3. Management inform, negotiate with and obtain agreement from union and local before any transfers, disciplinary measures or dismissal (including all forms of employment severance against the wishes of the employee) of any union member.
会社は、組合員の人事異動、懲戒処分、解雇（本人の意思に反するあらゆる雇用終了を含む）を行う場合、事前に組合ならびに支部に通知し、協議の上、同意を得て実施すること。
4. Management inform and make a mutual arrangement with local members before visiting schools to observe classes etc. and that any such visit shall have a minimum of one month’s advance notice.
会社は、授業参観などの目的で組合員の学校へ訪問する場合、該当組合員に１カ月以上の予告をし、組合員の都合に合わせて訪問の日程を決めること。
5. Management obtain consent from any union member before scheduling work on weekends.
会社は、全組合員に対し、土日の勤務を組む場合、事前に該当する組合員の同意を得ること。
透明性について On transparency …
6. Management provide union and local with Japanese language and English language versions of their shugyo kisoku official work rules.
会社は、組合員に適用される就業規則の日本語版と英語版の両方を組合ならびに支部に交付すること。
7. Management immediately disclose and explain each year’s financial documents, including profit-loss statement and balance sheet.
会社は、毎年の損益計算書、貸借対照表などの財務諸表について、速やかに組合ならびに支部に公開し、説明すること。
8. Management immediately give to the union and local a copy of the contract between company and all school boards where members work.
会社は、会社と組合員が働いている全ての教育委員会との間に締結されている契約書の写しを組合ならびに支部に付与すること。
9. Management explain in writing to the union and local the terms of the contract (“haken” or “gyomu itaku”) for each member, and how the type of contract affects the member’s work.
会社は、会社と教育委員会との間で締結している契約（上記第７条を参照）が派遣なのか、業務委託なのかといった契約形態について、組合ならびに支部に文書で明らかにし、併せて組合員の労働環境に与える影響を説明した文書を組合ならびに支部に付与すること。
金銭要求 Financial Demands
10. Management pay full actual transportation costs to all members.
会社は、全組合員に対し、交通費の実費を支給すること。
11. Management increase the salary of union members to ¥290,000 per month.
会社は、全組合員の賃金を月２９０，０００円に引き上げること。
12. Management count the training days forced upon members during July as additional working days to be paid at an additional ¥15,000 per day and refund full actual transportation costs.
会社は、全組合員に対し、７月に働かされる研修の日を労働日とし、日給１５，０００円および交通費の実費を追加に支給すること。
13. Management pay a full salary for August 2011
会社は、全組合員に対し、２０１１年８月について、１カ月分の全額の賃金を支給すること。
14. Management refrain from deducting any wages from any member who participates in collective bargaining during work hours.
会社は、所定時間内に開催する団体交渉出席者の賃金カットを行なわないこと。
15. Management refund all costs for medical checks required of union members.
会社は、組合員に健康診断を義務付ける場合、その費用の全額を負担すること。
…
他の要求事項 Other Demands
18. Management give 10 days paid annual leave to union members who have worked for six months (12 after 18 months, etc. according to Labor Standards Law) to be used at their own discretion, and not as management dictates.
会社は、全組合員に対し、労働基準法に則り、６カ月勤続後１０日間、１８カ月勤続後１２日間等の年次有給休暇について、本人が自由に取得できることを認めること。
19. A substitute ALT is not sent to a school if there are no lessons.
会社は授業の無い日に代行ALTを派遣しないこと。
20. Management use teacher evaluations only to help teachers further improve their performance and not let evaluations affect pay. All evaluations submitted by the school to the company are shown to the union in their original form.
会社は、教員の評価を賃金などに一切反映させず、該当する教員の能力・技術等の改善という目的に限定すること。会社は教育委員会が会社に提出する評価書の写しを、組合並びに支部に付与すること。
21. Management change our payday from the 25th of the month to the 15th of every month, to coincide with monthly payments such as rent and utilities.
会社は、給与支払日を家賃や光熱費などの支払いに合わせて、現在の翌月の２５日から翌月の１５日に変更すること。
22. Management assign teachers with experience to run training sessions.
会社は、研修を行うトレーナーの任命については、ＡＬＴ経験を持つ人に限ること。
23. Management arrange for all union members to have lockers at their workplaces (schools).
会社は、全組合員に対し、職場である学校の中に個人用ロッカーを手配すること。
24. Management explain about their current shakai hoken deductions
会社は社会保険の控除の詳細について組合並びに支部に文書で説明すること。
労使の信頼関係維持について Maintaining Relationship of Trust between Management and Union
25. Management comply with all articles of all labor laws, particularly Trade Union Law, and refrain from discriminating against or harassing any union member.
会社は、労働組合法をはじめ全ての労働法規を遵守し、いかなる組合員に対する差別行為、いやがらせ行為などをしないこと。
26. Management permit a union representative be present at all members’ meetings with management.
会社は、経営側が組合員と面談をする場合、組合の代表する者の立ち会いを認めること。
27. Management permit the union and local to conduct a 30-minutes union orientation, including passing out information, at all training sessions. Management inform the union at least four weeks in advance of the date, time and venue for all such training sessions.
会社は、全ての研修会に、組合ならびに支部に、情報配布などを含めた３０分のオリエンテーション（説明会）を行うことを許可すること。なお会社は、研修を行う４週間前に、日時・場所などを組合ならびに支部に通知すること。
28. Management sign a labor-management agreement with the union and local on the above demands.
会社は、上記の要求事項に基づいて、組合ならびに支部と労働協約を締結すること。
以上
Calm at J. Village belies the danger
Crisis worker woes, shortage another story
Tokyo Electric Power Co. on Friday for the first time let reporters into the base camp for thousands of workers striving every day to fix the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, showing off new dining facilities, a dormitory for single workers and the latest radioactivity monitors to check vehicles and clothing.
What wasn’t readily apparent, however, is the number of temporary dispatch workers without job or health insurance, and who face the ax once their radiation exposure tops out, according to a municipal assembly member from a nearby city.
But despite significant improvements in services and facilities at J. Village [a former soccer training complex now being used by Tepco], serious problems have remained for workers at Fukushima No. 1, insiders say.
Hiroyuki Watanabe, a member of the Iwaki Municipal Assembly, has interviewed about 20 nuclear plant workers and some have told him conditions were extremely bad. Some even claimed they only had a verbal contract for the job.
Many were sent by subcontractor dispatch companies that do not provide job or health insurance, which is illegal, Watanabe said.
The workers are often abandoned by personnel companies once their cumulative radiation exposure exceeds the legal limits, Watanabe said.
“For example, one worker kept working at the Fukushima No. 1 plant for more than 10 years. Even after the accident, he kept working and he was fired after his dose exceeded 40 millisieverts,” Watanabe said. “He had once falsified his exposure records so he would not lose his job.”
Teachers bolt jobs over mental angst
Stress, depression behind twentyfold 10-year increase in resignations of first-year educators
The number of first-year teachers who left their job for health reasons has increased twentyfold over the past 10 years, with most citing apparent emotional issues, an education ministry survey has found.
According to the survey, conducted on 25,743 public school teachers who began working in fiscal 2010, 101 voluntarily left within a year for “health” reasons, mainly depression and stress, compared with five in fiscal 2000.
Ninety-one of the 101 who quit were suffering emotional issues such as depression, the ministry said Tuesday.
“We believe (those teachers) suffered from a gap between reality and what they imagined before they start working. . . . Some were believed to have trouble dealing with difficult parents. Some may have suffered from human relationships at their workplaces,” education ministry official Masashi Izumino told The Japan Times on Wednesday.
Starting in fiscal 2009, the ministry began investigating the mental health of teachers who quit within a year. In the first survey, 83 of 86 who quit did so reportedly due to such apparent psychological troubles.
Of the 91 teachers last year who quit for such reasons, Tokyo had the highest number, with 29, followed by Chiba Prefecture with six and Aichi Prefecture with five.
Stress has been an issue not only among new teachers but veterans as well in recent years.
According to an education ministry report last year, 8,627 public school teachers took a leave of absence for health reasons in fiscal 2009. Of these, 5,458, or 63.3 percent, did so due to psychological problems.
The number of teachers taking temporary leave for mental health reasons has been steadily rising since fiscal 2000, the report said. While 0.24 percent of public school teachers took a leave of absence in fiscal 2000, the percentage rose to 0.60 in fiscal 2009, it said.
Over 10,000 construction workers and family thought to be without health insurance
Over 10,000 people who joined a public health insurance program for self-employed construction workers even though they were not qualified to are thought to be without health insurance now, it has been learned.
The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry found in its investigation in June 2010 that 12,252 policyholders of Zenkoku Kensetsu Kojigyo Kokumin Kenko Hoken Kumiai (Kojigyo Kokuho), a health insurance association for self-employed construction workers, were not actually qualified to join the program.
In many cases, employees of construction firms joined it by posing as self-employed construction workers or construction company owners had joined it by falsely describing themselves as self-employed individuals.
In September last year, the ministry instructed Kojigyo Kokuho to transfer 9,272 of the unqualified policyholders to the Japan Health Insurance Association for employees of small and medium-sized companies or other health insurance programs.
Of the policyholders, 3,970 completed the procedures for shifting to the Japan Health Insurance Association program. Another 1,800 individuals have shifted or are set to shift to public health insurance programs for self-employed people including farmers, forestry workers and fishermen.
However, about 6,500 others failed to shift to the Japan Health Insurance Association program by the June 2011 deadline. Since their old health insurance card expired in June this year, they and their family members, totaling more than 10,000 people, are highly likely to be covered by no health insurance program now.
Companies as well as individuals who employ at least five people are legally required to join public social insurance programs and split premiums for health insurance and employees’ pension programs evenly with their employees.
However, many construction firms joined Kojigyo Kokuho after being falsely told by association officials that companies were also qualified to join it. Moreover, other companies had their employees join the association by posing as self-employed construction workers, thereby evading paying premiums for their employees’ pension program.
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20111104p2a00m0na007000c.html
Schizophrenic Constitution leaves foreigners’ rights mired in confusion
So what rights do foreign residents have under the Constitution? Well, according to the Supreme Court, they are entitled to all the same rights as Japanese people, except for those which by their nature are only to be enjoyed by Japanese people. Does that help?
This Delphic guidance comes from a very important 1978 Supreme Court ruling in what is known as the McLean Case. Ronald McLean came to Japan as an English teacher in 1969 but quickly got involved in the local anti-Vietnam War protest movement. When he sought to renew his visa, the Ministry of Justice refused. He challenged the denial in court, asserting that he was being punished for engaging in lawful political activity, exercising his rights to free speech, assembly and so forth.
He lost (of course), and although the case is supposedly significant because in it the nation’s highest court enunciates the general principle that foreigners enjoy some of the rights enumerated in the Constitution, it does so with a caveat: that even those rights are limited by the scope of the regime of immigration laws which allow them to enter, reside and work in Japan.
Take the case of Kathleen Morikawa, an American resident in Japan who was fined for refusing to be fingerprinted as part of the alien registration process of days gone by. When she applied for a re-entry permit for a short trip to South Korea, her application was denied and she sought recourse in the courts. In 1992 the Supreme Court declared that foreigners had no constitutional right to enter or re-enter Japan, and that the Justice Ministry’s refusal to issue a re-entry permit was an acceptable exercise of administrative discretion in light of her refusal to be fingerprinted.
“Ignore the law and pay the price” is a fair comment here, but what I find noteworthy about the Morikawa case is that it did not seem to matter that she had a Japanese spouse and Japanese children. That the Justice Ministry can punitively strip Japanese nationals of their ability to travel or even live with a family member would seem to be at least as important constitutionally as whatever rights foreigners may or may not have.
The fact that many of us may be willing to live in Japan essentially at the sufferance of the government does not mean that our Japanese spouses, children and other kin should not have their own independent constitutionally protected rights to a family life free from arbitrary bureaucratic caprice. Article 13 of the Constitution refers to a right to the “pursuit of happiness,” but meaningful court precedents tying this provision to a right to family life are thin on the ground.
Recent revelations by a former prosecutor about being taught by his superiors that “foreigners have no human rights” raise further doubts about whether Japan is really up to the legal issues implicit in globalization.
Finally, since Japanese courts often justify their decisions using references to shakai tsūnen (commonly accepted social norms), even constitutional decisions can tend to reflect a distinctly majoritarian bent. In some countries a judiciary committed to defending minorities and unpopular viewpoints combined with clearly defined constitutional protections is expected to function as a bastion of human rights. Whether this can be expected of Japanese courts is debatable.
The fact that many of us expats are still here nonetheless may thus be because of the inherent kindness of the Japanese people rather than any high expectations of their government. At the end of the day, perhaps that is what popular sovereignty is all about.
Japan’s population marks slowest growth in 2010
Japan’s population stood at 128,057,352 as of Oct. 1, 2010, up 0.2 percent from five years earlier, marking the slowest growth since the once-in-five-years census began in 1920, the final results of the survey showed Wednesday.
When non-Japanese residents are excluded, the population dropped by about 371,000, or 0.3 percent, decreasing for the first time since 1975, when it began compiling the population of Japanese citizens separately from non-Japanese, the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry said.
“While Japan has entered an era of population decline, its total population has been flat because of an increase in foreign nationals,” a ministry official said.
The number of non-Japanese residents rose 5.9 percent, or about 93,000.
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20111027p2g00m0dm003000c.html
Vietnamese to be trained as nurses
The government plans to allow Vietnamese nationals to work as nurses and caregivers in Japan under a bilateral economic partnership agreement, officials said Wednesday.
The government has already allowed Indonesian and Filipino nationals to work as nurses and caregivers under bilateral free-trade agreements with Jakarta and Manila.
While more than 1,300 candidate nurses and caregivers have traveled to Japan from the two countries, only 19 have passed Japan’s qualification examination for nurses, due largely to language difficulties.