General Union And NUGW Tokyo Nambu Enter Joint Negotiations At British Council
Here's a follow up on our recent successes at ECC where the General Union joined forces with members at our sister union NUGW Tokyo Roso.
Union members at British Council are locking arms across unions to win improvements in their working conditions.
ECC Strike Postponed
ECC STRIKE POSTPONED
ECC branch members are currently considering an offer from the company.
Gaba: Instructors Views On The New Schedule Submission System
The General Union has sent correspondence to Gaba about the new schedule submission system, and will hear back on April 16th.
In the meantime, here are a few of the many responses we received from instructors to our anonymous instructor survey:
"Gaba is still enticing new instructors to join the company with the promise of flexibility in their schedules, which is no longer the case."
Injuries And Compensation At Gaba
Below, you'll see a Gaba lesson booth as it was on March 11th, 2011. It is now seven years since the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. Several Kanto area learning studios were damaged that day.
Instructors who were at Gaba during and after the disaster will no doubt remember the disorganization at the company, the lack of preparation, and the fact the company decided it was a good idea to open on March 12th.
Gaba Instructor Schedule Survey
Instructors at Gaba have been expressing discontent with the recent changes to Gaba's scheduling system.
Many Instructors work at Gaba largely because of the flexibility it offers, but that flexibility has been dramatically decreased in recent months.
A large number of instructors have spoken to the union expressing their view that flexibility is decreasing.
Latest Nova Court Update - February 20
Here is the latest update on our court case against Nova and their illegal "independent contractor" system. Read more about the case lodged in 2016.
Tuesday, February 20, was a full day of testimony with Mike testifying on the union's side and a foreign manager testifying on behalf of Nova.
Harassed By A Student At Gaba?
As we previously mentioned ("Gaba Corporation Meets General Union's Demands - Client Blocking Procedure Published"), Gaba has recently published its (2013) guidelines on blocking clients who have been involved in harassment.
Although we already provided these instructions in our previous article, they bear repeating because the guidelines are not easy to find without a determined search of the intranet, or without someone physically being able to show them to another instructor in person.
If you work for Gaba and need to locate these guidelines, here's what to do.
Do The "Six Minute NOVA Hustle"
In case you're wondering, this "hustle" isn't a kind of dance routine cooked up as a crazy PR stunt. No, it's very much the other kind of hustle. The bad kind.
Be that as it may, you probably know all of the moves already.
The NOVA hustle goes like this:
ECC Members Prepare For Action
It seems that the entire language industry has gone into merger mania! KDDI will buy AEON; G Academy will be merged into NOVA Holdings; GABA will merge with their parent company's COCO Juku; and Berlitz is already a Bennesse company. ECC appears to be the last family-owned national chain.
You may think that this news means that we need to back off from ECC and give them some room so they can change to meet the challenges of the new industry - but it's exactly because ECC needs to change that our fight is more necessary than ever.
Gaba Corporation Meets General Union's Demands - Client Blocking Procedure Published
The General Union has been raising the issue of harassment of instructors by clients with Gaba since 2013, and this has not been an easy process.
Instructors reported a number of cases of sexual harassment by clients, and how they were dealt with poorly by Gaba management.
There was a desire to ignore harassment and to encourage instructors to put up with it.
As recent news stories have shown, this is unfortunately common in many organizations all around the world - particularly when there is money to be made.
More Articles...
- Gaba And Coco Juku To Merge
- Sexual Harassment From Clients At Gaba Corporation
- Improvements For Hourly-Paid Employees At The British Council
- Berlitz Update (2017/09/15): Progress In Talks
- Emergency Drills At Gaba
- Berlitz Members Vote Yes In Strike Vote
- Berlitz Instructors Ready To Blow! Members Demanding Strike Vote!
- GABA - New System Training
- Unions Are Not "Cheap Lawyers For Hire"
- Why Is Amity Suddenly Recruiting Teachers From The Philippines?
