McDonald’s Holdings Co. (Japan) said Tuesday it will introduce a system Aug. 1 to provide overtime pay to some 2,000 outlet managers and area market developers across the country who have not been getting paid for extra work hours.
The move comes after the Tokyo District Court ruled in January that the fast-food chain should pay its outlet managers for overtime because they are given no administrative authority. Granting such authority is usually the criteria that allows companies not to pay overtime to managers.
The media have taken to calling outlet managers “managers in name only.”
The court ordered the company to pay ¥7.5 million in overtime to outlet manager Hiroshi Takano, 47, who had sued the firm.
Berlitz Striking Teachers Make History
The Berlitz General Union Tokyo (Begunto, a local of Nambu) maintained and expanded its 2007 shunto strike during this year’s shunto, focusing on two demands: a 4.6% across-the-boards base pay hike and a one month bonus.
Nearly half of all 46 Berlitz schools in the Kanto plain have been hit by walkouts since the dispute began last December. Over 55 teachers have joined in the time-fixed, volunteer strikes, making it by many accounts the largest enduring work stoppage in the history of Japan’s language industry.
“What we have discovered to our surprise and delight and to management’s chagrin is that many employees are joining the union just to participate in the strike,” said Begunto case officer Louis Carlet. “The strike is the best unionizing tool we have ever had.”
Another crucial point is that while most language school labor disputes aim to maintain or protect working conditions or employment, this strike is “aggressive rather than defensive in that we are fighting for a raise,” notes Begunto Vice President Catherine Campbell.
The union has also held several rowdy, boisterous pickets at several schools around the region, even at non-striking schools, urging coworkers to do the right thing. Check out a video of one such action:
Jack London’s scathing “definition of a scab” also hangs on the union board at most Kanto schools. Finally, some Kanagawa strikers created a rap song specifically about our 2008 shunto fight:
Little Garden Smashes Shamelessness Record for Union Discrimination
NUGW Tokyo Nambu on May 15 filed a petition against preschool Little Garden for redress from unfair labor practices — sued the firm for union busting — at the Tokyo Labor Commission.
Last summer, teachers and admin staff tried to build a union but management came down hard, making clear that anyone who joined would not last long. Most backed down, but one courageous teacher named Joyce continued the fight. Nambu waited to declare her membership until after her employment contract was renewed in April. Little Garden gave her a raise along with the renewal.
Two weeks after declaration, Little Garden gave our Joyce a dismissal notice. During collective bargaining, management claimed that although during her first year of employment she had a sterling record, in the fortnight between declaration and dismissal, the company received a record number of complaints from parents of the preschoolers. The union believes the real record is rather for “shamelessness of union discrimination.”
Nambu doesn’t brook union-busting. We have begun strikes, leaflets and will pursue the employees’ right to unionize by all legal means necessary.
Foreign teachers to be full-timers
Foreign nationals will be hired as full-time instructors at Akita Prefecture elementary schools starting next April, when English lessons become part of the official curriculum, its education board said.
Native English speakers or those who have studied in English-speaking countries for a certain period can apply regardless of nationality or whether they hold a teacher’s license. All applicants must have a good command of Japanese, officials said.
The move is a first across Japan, the officials said. Assistant language teachers have so far been hired only on a part-time basis.
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200805140084.html
Foreign trainee abuses doubled
A record 449 corporations and organizations that accepted foreign nationals under a controversial trainee and intern system were found to have treated them unlawfully and abusively in 2007, the Justice Ministry said.
The figure is twice the number from a year earlier. The ministry said employers had violated labor laws in 178 cases. Companies sent trainees and interns to workplaces other than those they had reported to the ministry in 115 cases. In 98 cases, they illegally forced participants to work overtime or on holidays, the ministry said.
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200805120061.html
As parent firm posts record profits, Berlitz teachers strike back
“Benesse boasts openly on its Web site about the success of its ‘Language Company’ sector, mentioning Berlitz Japan in particular,” notes longtime Berlitz teacher and Begunto (Berlitz General Union Tokyo) Vice President Catherine Campbell.
The language teachers of Begunto didn’t need a math class to put two and two together, and in April 2007 they began “shunto” (spring) negotiations for a “base-up” raise and bonus.
As the time of writing, at least 55 teachers have conducted “spot strikes” at at least 16 Berlitz schools, most of these in greater Tokyo. Begunto says it is encouraged by the response: Some French and Spanish teachers have walked out, and several more teachers have joined the union. That adds up to teachers walking out of 275 lessons in the greater Tokyo area, at large schools in Ikebukuro and Akasaka as well as suburban locations such as Seijo Gakuen, Atsugi and Kashiwa.
Louis Carlet, Deputy Secretary General of the National Union of General Workers [Tokyo Nambu], Begunto’s parent union, writes that Berlitz has been forced to “spend massive amounts of money and resources sending ‘shadows’ to cover the classes of potential strikers with strikebreakers.”
Japan looks to immigrants as population shrinks: report
Japan’s ruling party is considering plans to encourage foreign workers to stay in the country long-term, a daily reported Monday after the birth rate fell for the 27th successive year.
The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has proposed setting up an “immigration agency” to help foreign workers — including providing language lessons, the Nikkei economic daily said without naming sources.
The party also intends to reform current “training” programmes for foreign workers, which have been criticised for giving employers an excuse for paying unfairly low wages, the paper said.
LDP lawmakers believe that immigration reform will help Japanese companies secure necessary workers as the declining birthrate is expected to further dent in the nation’s workforce, it said.
A group of about 80 LDP lawmakers will draw up a package of proposals by mid-May, it said. No immediate comment was available from the party on Monday.
A government report on the falling birthrate warned in April that Japan’s workforce could shrink by more than one-third to 42.28 million by 2050 if the country fails to halt the decline.
The government said Monday the number of children in Japan has fallen for the 27th straight year to hit a new low.
Children aged 14 or younger numbered 17,250,000 as of April 1, down by 130,000 from a year earlier, the internal affairs ministry said in an annual survey released to coincide with the May 5 Children’s Day national holiday.
The figure is the lowest since 1950 when comparable data started.
The ratio of children to the total population sank for 34 years in a row to 13.5 percent, also a record low, the ministry said.
Local media said it was also believed to be the world’s lowest, coming below 14.1 percent for both Italy and Germany.
Japan has struggled to raise its birthrate with many young people deciding that families place a burden on their lifestyles and careers.
Japan’s population has been shrinking since 2005 and the country is not producing enough children to prevent the drop.
The average number of children a woman has during her lifetime now hovers around 1.3, well below the 2.07 necessary to maintain the population.
Government leaders in Japan, which largely thinks of itself as ethnically homogeneous, have rejected the idea of allowing mass-scale immigration.
Some politicians have argued an influx of immigrants would lead to lower wages for Japanese workers and a higher crime rate.
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gtPwefRUpgnEjK1cv6CefxzYpwFg
DPJ weighs voting rights for all permanent residents
The DPJ lawmakers in favor of alien suffrage held seminars almost every other week until the end of March, inviting guest speakers on both sides of the issue to clarify their ideas.
In early April, the group declared that voting rights should be given to all permanent residents who come from countries with which Japan has official diplomatic ties, thus excluding North Koreans.
Under the envisaged bill, permanent residents who wish to vote would be granted the right upon application.
“Japan is increasingly depopulated, and it’s important to get foreign residents to join together in the process of developing local communities. But to encourage their sense of being an interested group themselves, it’s necessary to give them their rights and duties,” said Shinkun Haku, an Upper House lawmaker and member of the group. “This in the end will benefit Japan.”
Japan May Issue Longer Visa for Foreigners With Language Skill
Japan plans to increase the length of stay for long-term visa holders who have Japanese-language ability, Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura said today.
The government may expand the period of stay for foreigners who know Japanese to five years from three, Komura told reporters at a briefing in Tokyo today. Non-Japanese who use the language in their work, such as flight attendants, may face easier entry requirements, he said.
“This is to relax regulations, not to tighten them,” said Komura. “We will never deny those who were previously accepted to Japan simply because of their lack of Japanese ability.”
Today’s announcement came as Japan’s population of 127.7 million is projected to drop 4 percent by 2020. Japan currently allows only skilled foreign workers and descendants of Japanese immigrants in Latin America to work in Japan as well as Asian trainees who often perform low-paid labor.
A study group of the Foreign Ministry and the Justice Ministry, set up in January, recommended in an interim report released today that the government expand the maximum period of stay for foreigners with a basic level of Japanese-language proficiency. The Justice Ministry issues one-year and three-year visas, which can be extended.
The level of proficiency required to receive an extended visa won’t be high, according to a Foreign Ministry official who briefed reporters today on condition of anonymity. The details of the level of proficiency and how to measure ability have yet to be decided. The Justice Ministry may submit a bill to revise the immigration law in the parliament session that will start January 2009, he said.
The number of foreign residents in Japan has steadily increased to 2.1 million in December 2006, or 1.63 percent of the population, the latest available statistics, according to the Ministry of Justice Web site. In contrast, overseas-born residents comprise 12 percent of the population in the U.S.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=aUKfPI1P0OAQ&refer=japan
Ex-Nova teachers face firings half year on
Foreign and Japanese employees hired by Nova Corp.’s successor complained of unreasonable dismissals and pay cuts Saturday as they marked the half-year anniversary of the giant language school’s collapse.
Nagoya-based G.communication said it had hired about 1,400 foreign instructors by the end of December, but that about 400 of them had quit by the end of March.
G.education operates 169 language schools across Japan under the Nova name. Before going bankrupt, Nova was the biggest English language school chain in Japan.