Job Discussion Forums

[julieoapw]

my company did not - the regular staff taught the credited classes as usual. I did not take anyone else's job. Ours was an extra conversation class. It's hard for the students to get much chance to practice orally in a class of 45.

[JimDunlop2]

[julieoapw]

[JimDunlop2]

Ummm.... What are you on? Where did I ever call you a scab?

[julieoapw]

[JimDunlop2]

Whatever, Julie....

[JimDunlop2]

Resorted to sarcastic name-calling, have we, Andare? Brilliant! Tell you what. If you or your compadre Julie can piece together anything resembling a lucid argument to show that what I'm saying is incorrect or flawed, I'll be glad to discuss and debate it with you.

In the mean time, as far as I know, I was pointing out to Julie that even though she herself was not taking over some uni prof's job, the technique being used by either ECC or Westgate (take your pick) is a well-known union-busting move. A statement of fact... Then somehow Julie takes it quite personally and draws the conclusion that I'm calling her a scab because of what might happen in the future. Well, not right now I'm not. IF it does happen someday, then yeah, that's what you'll be to me. But not yet. For now, only the company you are working for (worked for) is providing scab labor -- even if you weren't one of them.

That's like saying Nike isn't guilty of running sweatshops because the particular sneaker that you are currently wearing happened to have been made in the U.S. Open your eyes!

If Julie doesn't have the sense to differentiate between the two, I'm not going to bother pointing out the obvious. An and a "whatever" is all what her reply warranted.

As for you, Andare, if you had ever worked in a decent unionized workplace, you wouldn't be talking this way. I don't care if you label me as some kind of nutjob left-wing socialist. I'm not a highly political person, left or right. I just want honest representatives who listen to their constiutents, be they from the left or right. However if change needs to happen I'll speak out. And if it means waving a red flag and setting up a barricade, then so be it. At least it would turn a few heads.

[Nagoyaguy]

Aside from the distasteful and anti-educational feeling provided by universities hiring poorly qualified instructors, what does anyone know about the legality of it?

Dispatch companies have been operating for years in the public education system here. Groups like Interac, W5 and the like have a stranglehold on jobs for native English teachers at the elementary, junior high, and high school levels. Yet, few people see it as a problem. As a parent, I would not be happy to know that the school my son goes to simply farmed out the teaching jobs to the lowest bidder, also to someone who is NOT accountable to the school administration. IMHO, it shows the general level of contempt that English language instruction engenders in the general public.

Last I heard, Japanese labour law stated that positions filled with contract employees (such as dispatch instructors) could only be filled for a maximum of 3 years. After that, the position has to be either eliminated, or the employee has to be hired directly/permanently by the school. Anyone know about this?

[PAULH]

Taken from a recent email subscriber list:


One works part-time at a university where "advanced English classes"
have been outsourced to a Tokyo company, and 'regular' part-time and
full-time staff teach the lower proficiency classes. The company has two
teachers going to the university 5 days a week to teach 2 classes a day
to the same students. The teachers are on campus and mostly available
outside classroom hours, too. At the end of each semester, the company
sends a Japanese staff member as counselor to talk with students and
deal with any complaints. The company seems to be charging the
university the same rate as they pay their part-time staff, but is
probably paying the two teachers less.

As for the part-time and full-time staff teaching the lower proficiency
classes, there is meant to be coordination of the programme, managed by
non-Japanese and Japanese full-time staff, but it has not been working
so well. My colleague felt there was a lack of communication between the
administration, the full-time staff, and the part-time staff, and that
the administration did not understand what was being achieved in the
classes by the students. She had presented a video of some parts of her
course to the admin to show what the students could do by the end of two
years, and the admin was pleasantly surprised. So, the grounds for
opting for outsourcing seem to have been the lack of co-ordination and
communication between different parties involved.

My other informant works part-time in a faculty at a different
university where there have been rumours for the last couple of years
that "something" is going to happen and that part-time jobs will be cut.
In this faculty, it seems that "conservative" individuals have taken
power over the "internationalists" and want to reduce the number of
English credit courses that students have to take. The in-fighting
between these factions have left the part-timers adrift, without knowing
what their employment will be in the next academic year, and the quality
of the English education offered students has suffered. Whereas the
English courses were closely aligned with the students' academic majors
before and were geared to academic study through English, this is being
gradually watered down as credit requirements get reduced. In turn,
students are losing a clear sense of what they are doing in courses and
are struggling to make progress.

[JimDunlop2]

Thanks for proving my point, Andare.

When you can put two coherent thoughts together and come up with a something worth responding to aside from changing my name from Jim to Jimbo to Jimbob, I'll be waiting.

P.S. Edit:

[PAULH]

Bye Bye,

Andare