Interac in the News – Punishment for Being Sick

An article from January, 2008 about the fact that Interac ALTs do not get all of what they are entitled to by law.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20080105f1.html

THIS FOREIGN LAND
Assistant language teachers in trying times

By KANAKO TAKAHARA
Staff writer
Last of four parts

In November, Samantha Bouton, an assistant language teacher working at a public elementary school in the rural town of Shibayama, Chiba Prefecture, had a fever of 38.5 degrees and was diagnosed as suffering bronchitis.

Because of her illness, Bouton, a 25-year-old U.S. native from Oregon who has been teaching in Japan’s public schools since 2004, had to take leave for two weeks.

But her employer, Interac, a temp staff dispatch agency and leading provider of ALTs in Japan, told her she had already used up her seven days of annual paid leave — less than the 12 days she is entitled to under labor law — to cover the days she was sick.

Read more

Interac in the News

This is an archived post from the old General Union Interac Branch website, written by an undeclared union member (thus the nickname rather than the name):

Hi all. Corrector here.

Many of you may have seen this before through the original link on Let’s Japan earlier this year, but I wanted to highlight the story here as well. This report aired on NHK on June 30th, 2007. The first part covers a bit of NOVA (old NOVA that is, not neo/G.Communications/NOVA), and then the second part covers the hardships of some awesome people working as teachers in Chiba under the strangling gauntlet of Interac…

If anyone wants to volunteer to write an English transcript for those who may need/want it, feel free to send it my way and I will post it. Otherwise, you will either have to wait until I have the time, or just visit the aforementioned Let’s Japan entry to get all the details.
Kudos to Shawn for running a great blog/forum.
These videos originally posted and donated to us by several members who are in the video (which should give us plenty of rebroadcasting rights).

We will be posting more surveys, information and entertaining diatribe shortly so stay tuned…
Solidarity.