Kun’ei High School demands for 2017 submitted

Union members working at Kun’ei Girls High School have submitted demands for the 2017 academic year. We hope to hold collective bargaining in the very near future and work towards winning our demands as we did in 2015 when we won our minimum pay demands and school-provided computers for our members.

We submitted the following:

• That the employer discuss plans for further campus improvements.
• That the employer discuss plans for unlimited term contracts starting in 2018 based on the Labour Contract Law.
• A minimum pay rise of 50,000YEN.

Fingers crossed.

Kun’ei High School demands for 2017 submitted

Union members working at Kun’ei Girls High School have submitted demands for the 2017 academic year. We hope to hold collective bargaining in the very near future and work towards winning our demands as we did in 2015 when we won our minimum pay demands and school-provided computers for our members.

We submitted the following:

• That the employer discuss plans for further campus improvements.
• That the employer discuss plans for unlimited term contracts starting in 2018 based on the Labour Contract Law.
• A minimum pay rise of 50,000YEN.

Fingers crossed.

From The Archives: Youthful Adventures With Employment Term Limits In The 1990s

As is often the case with all things in life: sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose. In this case, back in the 1990s, we landed somewhere in-between.

The Higashi-Osaka Board of Education had one of the earliest direct-hire programs in all of Japan (outside of JET, that is). It was, at the time, a great program; unfortunately, there was a one major problem: a 3-year term limit placed on employment AFTER teachers were employed.

Thus, in our infancy as a union, we set out to smash the term limit completely...

Read more...

Rainbow International And Ineffective Bureaucracy

Back in August (2016), we reported that - because of union action - there had been an excellent ruling by the Chuo (Osaka) Labor Standards Office against Rainbow International School over its culture of unpaid overtime. Unfortunately, we may have pressed that "upload to website button" a little too quickly...

Read more...

Senri International Campus Set To Close Saturday School?

At the end of March, 2016, teachers who work on the special programs at Kwansei Gakuin’s Senri International Campus ("Saturday School" and the summer vacation "Just for Kids" program) were told that these programs would be closed from the end of March, 2018.

Read more...

More Unpaid Overtime At Rainbow International; More Action From The General Union

The General Union has, in the past, locked horns with Rainbow International School over their culture of unpaid overtime. Indeed, as we wrote in our 2015-2016 union activity report:

"We have dealt with unpaid overtime here in the past and won payment. We are taking up the issue again this year but the person has left Japan and the company may not be so ready to settle. If not, it will be a good opportunity to use the Labor Standards Office and have an official order made.

Read more...

Takatsuki City fails to settle dispute , Case will go to final judgement

With the outcome looking bad for Takatsuki City, the Osaka Labor Relations Commission had proposed to Takatsuki City that they settle our Unfair Labor Practices case by agreeing with the union’s proposal to start talks with Toowoomba City to restart the AET program in line with Japanese employment laws.

Yesterday though, on June 17th, 2016, Takatsuki City told the Commission that they were refusing this proposal and that they are ready to wait for the ruling of Osaka Labor Relations Commission. Ridiculous enough, they also told Osaka Labor Relations Commission, “The friendship activities between two cities are going well EXCEPT the AET Ambassador Exchange Program.”

Read more...

Osaka City University's Threat To Outsource Its Own Teachers Invokes Union Intervention

In March of this year (2016), sixteen part-time teachers at the Osaka City University (OCU) - located in Sumiyoshi-ku, Osaka, received new contracts to sign which had, unbeknownst to them, been changed from previous contracts to include a clause stating that THIS contract would be their final employment contract with the university.

Many teachers signed the contract - which was only given to them in Japanese - without realizing that the contract (which was, for all intents and purposes, otherwise identical to previous contracts) had been altered to include the new "final contract" clause.

In addition, the university abstained from verbally informing the teachers of the additional clause, perhaps hoping that they would not notice its inclusion...

Read more...

Takatsuki City Wastes ¥1,296,000

In May of 2015, the General Union was able to win retroactive enrollment in unemployment insurance (雇用保険; koyou hoken) for the former direct-hire ALTs (AETs) of Takatsuki city. At that time, the city argued that, despite having an employment contract with those ALTs, the ALTs themselves were not employees, and therefore should not have received unemployment insurance.

Wait, what?

Read more...

Takatsuki City Caught Lying (Again)

If you follow General Union news fairly regularly, you'll know that one of our larger cases (in recent history) has involved the Takatsuki Board of Education and the previous AETs who suffered as a result of exposing many of the illegalities that the city was involved in. (See: "Takatsuki City Out Of Control")

As we continue to fight that fight, more and more developments keep revealing themselves to us. Case in point: we just caught more of the Board of Education's lies.

***

Read more...