Job Discussion Forums

[Doglover]

1.
In this evening`s Asahi Shimbun, there`s an article about Nova`s failure to enrol foreigners in the national health and pension insurance plan and
government investigation of the issue...

See:
http://www.asahi.com/life/update/0606/010.html?t

2.
Underneath, there`s an article about a current government poster sported by famous Korean footballer in Japan ?Ang Jon Fan ?informing the general public that the Ministry of Health Welfare and Labour is requiring ALL employers of foreign employees to submit (some kind of data - couldn`t access the on-line questionnaire) about their employment to HELLO WORK in the month of June 2005.

See:
http://www.mhlw.go.jp/bunya/koyou/gaikokujin/index.html

3.
I attach the articles with a machine translation of each...

4.
It`s possible that the government is preparing its upcoming report to the UN CERD Committee (since Japan must submit periodical reports to the UN on the employment of foreigners, so that racial discrimination can be stamped out and their next report is pretty much due...and probably
under-researched....)

It`s also possible that they are responding to recent union pressure
(supported and promoted by� DPJ rep. Kazuo Inoue and SDP leader Mizuho Fukushima) to research the issue.

See:
http://www.injapan.org/

5.
The question is: what is YOUR employer going to tell HELLO WORK this month?� I certainly want to know...Are you enrolled in shakai hoken? I suggest this might be a very good month to check and to even pay a visit to HELLO WORK to make sure nothing is being swept under the carpet.

[Gordon]

Not sure if this is the exact article, but related. It is taken from the Mainichi News
http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/news/20050606p2a00m0dm019000c.html

Hundreds of English schools probed over foreigner benefits exploitation




Government inspectors have begun a nationwide inspection of about 750 operators of mostly English language schools amid speculation that it has become standard practice not to enroll foreign teachers in social insurance programs.

Anybody working 30 or more hours a week for more than two months is obliged under Japanese law to have health insurance and enroll in a pension plan, but the Social Insurance Agency says that many foreigners are being forced to pay full charges for medical care because their employers do not offer them coverage.

In June last year, the agency decided it would focus its inspections on organizations employing many foreign workers.

Then, in March, members of the General Union, a labor union formed mostly by foreign teachers, held a news conference saying that Nova, the country's biggest employer of foreign language teachers, had not enrolled its foreign staff in social insurance programs. The claims prompted the agency to embark on an investigation into the industry's employment practices.

There are believed to be somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 foreign language teachers throughout Japan.

The agency will force teachers to enroll in social insurance programs if they are supposed to have done so but have not yet joined. (Mainichi)