Job Discussion Forums

[JimDunlop2]

[Mike L.]

Bump!!

To the Chimp, I mean the Gimp and other defenders of Intercrack:

How is it that one finds oneself, a gaijin in Japan, defending Intercrack?

Desperation?

Ignorance of the law and stardard Japanese business practices?

A lack of self respect?

A lack teaching ability?

All of the above?

Do tell more!!!!!!

[lajzar]

For those defending the late pay of Interac...

Consider just the terms of the contract. Work done in, say, April, does not get paid until the last day of the following month (ie May 31st). This means that depending on the exact day of work being examined, the payment will occur between 28 and 61 days after the work was done. Every (non-Interac) Japanese person I have ever spoken to about this has been shocked and astounded that people are paid so late by a Japanese company. They say it creates a horrible image of Japan to be paid so late.

Yes, I accept that this is legal. Apparently, it is the last day on which paymet can be made and still be legal. Legally, it is ok. Ethically, you pay the man while the sweat is still on his brow.

And then when you consider those times that Interac has paid late, it then becomes a breech of both contract and labour law in general.

Now, I know that Interac has paid late in the past. The most recent date the Interac supporters here give is 18 months ago. What I am looking for is solid evidence of late payments (or other forms of employee abuse) that are more recent.

Calling the company Intercrack does not make me think of yu as a reliable source.

[Lover]

Wow this is scary! I just accepted a job with Interac to start teaching at a high school this April, but now I am wondering if I should look elsewhere for a job!
Does anyone have an ideas on how to get objective information about Interac?

[tomjones7]

Some of you guys take yourselves, and your intelligence, way too seriously.
Some brief facts about Interac :

Yes, they sometimes pay late.

Yes, they usually ask you first. Mostly it's not a problem, if it is they will pay 100p/c on time.

Yes, getting paid the next month sucks at first, but later turns into a bonus.

I worked there for 4 years. Generally the gaijin staff are good to work with, the Jap staff a little tedious, but basically harmless.

All this talk about Labor law illegalities is pointless. If you've lived in Japan for any length of time you will understand this.

Too many of you get a little too excited about it all.
"Get a Life!" some would say, although we all know that aint easy in Japan. "Chill and put away the axes". The sound of grinding is giving me a headache!

Put Interac out of business !? Bring it down ? Sounds like a good way to make a lot of guys lose their jobs. And for what ? The guy who wants more direct contracts with BoE's has just exposed his self-interested hand.
Get a job as a lumberjack. That will let off some of your steam, and put that axe of yours to more profitable use.

[klute]

Yes it is strange that people "get a little too excited" about not being paid properly - I just can't undestand it.

Sloppy payment via Interac? Check this out. Interac are trying to recruit people to go to JICA Training Centres as language instructors in April. It's a 3 month deal with a possible chance of renewal for teachers depending on their ability to tow the Interac/JICA line. Part of this line includes volunteering not to be paid for work actually done. Last term there was a field trip with students to an outside location. The work time was 8:15 to 5:15 i.e. 9 hours. Interac paid for 6 hours as they claimed that is what they got from JICA. If teachers made a fuss -as some did - they were not invited back the following term.

Sad, but true

[King Kong Bundy]

Willy_In_Japan wrote:

If any company is not paying your salary on the day they have agreed, you really should be contacting the Labor Standards office "

The labour standards office in Japan is a waste of tax payers' money! They almost always side with the company.

Not all agencies that hire teachers out to BOE are corrupt. I have worked for both extremes. I luckly am now working for a very outstanding company. I have more job security with them than I would working for any BOE.
There are many reasons why BOE doesn't want to hire native English teacher! But all of them come down to one main reason.

[Futsukayoi]

I also work for Interac in the Kanto district, and am pretty much satisfied with my job. My only gripe was at the beginning, our 3-day training was unpaid, and even though I was required to arrive at the end of March for this unpaid training, work at my assigned school didnt begin until April 14th, and those 2 weeks in between were also unpaid.

That said, on the other hand, the job is easy (not too much stress/responsibility), it's interesting, my pay is ok (i get 260K/month plus transportation costs), the Interac staff treat their employees well, and they pay accurately and on time. But the biggest plus compared to other big companies that hire from overseas, I have weekends off, over 4 weeks off in the summer (paid at 60%), another 3 weeks in December-Jan (75% pay), about 2 more weeks between school seasons in March-April, as well as all Japanese national holidays... so yeah that works out to over 10 weeks of off-time, with $ still coming in. My reasons for living in Tokyo/Japan are not so much related to teaching experience and high paychecks though... I'm here to enjoy myself, have a good time, and experience life in a different culture. I'd say I value free time more than most people and I like to make good use of the long holidays I have. So, the job I have with Interac is pretty much ideal for me, and even though there may be much better jobs out there, I don't have a masters degee, or a lot of passion for teaching per se, so I can't be bothered searching around and applying for all of them. On a side note, the ALTs hired directly by the BoE in my area are forced to sit around at city hall during the summer, and might only get a week or two of holiday time... the rest is spent sitting at a desk at the BoE office doing absolutely nothing for over a month. Sure they get paid a bit more and get paid fully for the summer, etc, but given the choice I'd rather have that month off even if it was unpaid.
I also worked at a major eikaiwa for a year, and although I found the work there more enjoyable at stimulating at times, it's a completely different experience living in Japan and not having weekends off (it was still fun at the time, but compared to now, in retrospect, it sucked). IMO it's worth the tradeoff having Saturday and Sunday off like normal people, even if it's a slightly more boring job teaching kids in JHS/elementary school etc as an ALT. But anyway, to each his/her own...

So yeah, my point is that Interac is not a bad place to work... hopefully they'll start paying for the training period, but what the hell that's only 3 days anyway, and down the line it's not going to affect the rest of your experience/enjoyment of being in Japan. The training could also be better... for those with little teaching knowledge/experience they kinda leave you out in the cold... but they are improving. Like someone else said, the company has gone through huge changes and expansion over the last few years, and are just now catching up to themselves. So if I were a new Interac recruit, I wouldn't worry at all about probs they had in the past. For people who aren't lifetime EFL teachers with masters degrees etc and thus can't compete as well for the more cushy jobs out there, Interac is a great choice. For those that fall into the former category, what's the point of attacking Interac when they're not even competing for your jobs anyway... apples and oranges IMO. Another positive sign, most of the teachers in my area are signing on for another year... we only had one girl leave because she was obviously overqualified and getting frustrated, but everyone else had little or no complaints and liked it enough to stay another year. Anyway just wanted to throw in my 2 cents since there seemed to be a lack of informed opinions in this thread...

peace.

[guest of Japan]

Let's see - why do people attack interac? Because they are a behemoth of a company that have driven down working conditions for everyone. The only way for rival companies to compete with them is to do it even cheaper, which means unlivable salaries.

Incidently, I don't work for interac, but I get my salary a full month after completing the working period. I nearly starved to death when I began. It was nearly 3 months until I received my first full pay check.

Dispatch companies usually operate with a negative cash flow problem. They are paid in intervals through out the year for services previously rendered. Interac was paying late because they took on more teachers than they could support on cash reserves. They followed a risky business model that emphasizes rapid growth in order to dominate the market. Two other examples of companies that followed were Nova and the department store Daei (sp?). Nova ended up accumulating tons of debt at very high interest. Daei is in a continuous state of bankruptcy, but it's debts are so massive that the banks don't want to let it die, so they pump more and more money into it. The good news for interac was that its risk was only temporary since it was in the end gauranteed enough money to cover its costs.

[Willy_In_Japan]

[JimDunlop2]

[Mike L.]

Willey_In_Japan wrote:

[bearcat]

My comments in bold and inbedded in the original post.

[lajzar]

[homersimpson]