Job Discussion Forums

yamanote senbei · Joined: 28 Jun 2005 Posts: 435

These companies are running illegal, unlicenced labour dispatch enterprises. Essentially, ALTs are being ripped off because there's a middleman between them and their job. The middleman takes between 30-50% of the ALTs' salary, something that's illegal and referred to as Intermediate Exploitation in the Labour Standards Law. The middleman also doesn't enroll the ALTs in government health insurance because the middleman would then have to pay half of the premiums.

MEXT and the Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare doesn't know that your BOE is receiving workers illegally until you tell them. MEXT has already issued a general order for BOEs to stop doing it, but until you blow the whistle on your BOE, nothing will change because MEXT doesn't know that it's still going on.

The vast majority of ALTs have no idea that this is happening to them. ALT "dispatch" companies know that the ALTs aren't smart enough to know that something's wrong.

fluffyhamster · Posted: Thu Nov 16, 2006 8:27 am Post subject:

I'm tempted to do a bit of whistleblowing, but I suspect that all it would result in is bad blood between me and not only the dodgy dispatcher (DD), but also the BOE too: I doubt if either would want to hire me if I rocked the boat even more than I do already (actually I am getting quite good at e.g. "extorting" money owing to me due to crappily slow pay systems etc. Open day at the school? Oh, I'm sorry, I can't do the demo lesson with the JTE, cos I'm "ill" (koff koff). Sh*tload of elementary school visits over the coming few weeks? Transfer more money into my account than that insult you called a paycheck - deducted down to almost zilcho yenos cos of all the money I've had to borrow from you, what with no pay for August yadda yadda - and I'll maybe think about doing 'em. You're firing me cos I was "trouble"? You don't know what trouble is yet!).

kitano · Joined: 18 Nov 2004 Posts: 86

Sembei, I'm with you on your first paragraph but not the second and the third. Its pretty naive to think MEXT are unaware of what goes on or that they would change anything just because you send them an email or phone them. I think many ALTs get the situation but realize it will take a bit more than informing MEXT to change anything.

Nagoyaguy · Joined: 15 May 2003 Posts: 425 Location: Aichi, Japan

What Kitano says rings true. It seems like a situation where the BofE, school, and even MEXT are all comfortable with the situation as it is. Yes, it is illegal, but it IS easy and stress free. THe BofE has a convenient fall guy if the ALT is a spazz- they can blame the dispatch company. Everyone is absolved of responsibility in the case of a bad ALT. This is the most important service that schools and BofEs pay for- it's a form of insurance. They are buying deniability.

Of course, this is not a good situation for the ALT. I can see it working where ALTs are in and out every couple years. If the schools or BofEs are serious about language education, they would set up more permanent programmes, with full time foreign staff and so on. As it is, they are content with renting a human tape recorder to come to the occasional class.

It's a huge waste of resources. If the boards hired teachers directly, they could get competent and professional teachers for the same money that they throw at the dispatch companies.

fluffyhamster · Posted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 6:23 am Post subject:

Still, why bother hiring even halfway-competent and professional native speakers when they're expected to never drift more than 1% away from the textbook or, heaven forbid, teach any actually useful new vocabulary or phrases (even when the JTE is also halfway-decent and should be able to handle it).

Glenski · Joined: 15 Jan 2003 Posts: 12844 Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN

fluffyhamster wrote:

fluffyhamster · Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 9:29 am Post subject:

Believe it or not, the contract I'm on now is better - on paper anyway - than the one I had last year: at least I get "paid" (eventually) for every month of the year (except August), and at a fixed rate (my previous job paid literally by the day, so there were quite a few months when the pay was dipping dengerously low). The only thing is, they have that BS work for two months before you get paid a month, which wouldn't be too bad if it only affected the ALT until the end of May (April and May would be tough), BUT I didn't think things through enough to realize that that pay system would also bite through the end of September until the end of October.

This company tries to kid you that you'll be saving up a nice nest egg for when you leave them and/or Japan ('You'll get a month's pay without having to work for it!'), but do they seriously think I'll be happy having to hang around in Japan or wherever with rent etc due beyond their crappy contract (another "plus" with this company: they can 'forward the money to any bank account in the world of your choosing'! Wow!).

Basically, Glenski, there are fewer and fewer decent jobs around for those who, for whatever reasons, didn't arrive and network, and also e.g. save up a nice nest egg with which to get a further degree, before the bubble burst here; and even those who have nice uni jobs seem to be needing to fight their corners too now.

I suppose I could hang on in here and try to stick it out, but I'm slowly beginning to realize that this may well be my last year here in Japan. I'm really getting too old for this AET sh*t (even the private schools don't appeal to me now), I'm not sure it's now worth doing a further degree, at least not as regards "careers" in Japan (even if I could afford to do one), and if I'm generally going to need to live on peanuts I think I'll go to country where there isn't quite the expectation that I be so happy with the peanuts that I never rock the boat and be a model teacher/employee/citizen/cog.

ripslyme · Joined: 29 Jan 2005 Posts: 481 Location: Japan

fluffyhamster · Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2006 9:02 am Post subject:

Yeah, I could('ve) networked more, but I'm a bit wary of private high schools now (those that I've considered seem to reckon it's OK to work their few teachers to death for what's hardly a king's ransom above your average ALT wage...anything for an easy life); and it was bad luck that the one that I did work at sucked so bad that I wasn't prepared to see the contract out (and thus lost whatever good references/word-of-mouth they might - and I repeat might - have deigned to offer any ALT who'd worked there for the full duration).

But I'll consider trying Ohayo-sensei again: even though the application process isn't automated like Gaijinpot, there are some good jobs in there sometimes.

Networking, heh, sometimes I'm convinced it's all done by a few JET or ex-JET surfer dudes who somehow land jobs and then keep on recommending each other for whatever juicy positions, all because the BOE or school can't be bothered to advertise and interview widely and properly.

Glenski · Joined: 15 Jan 2003 Posts: 12844 Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN

fluffyhamster · Posted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 5:09 am Post subject:

If the school hires you directly, I guess you could start at 350K+, but even private HSs sometimes prefer to get their teachers through dispatch agencies - certainly, that sh*ite school that I worked at used a dispatcher, and my salary there was 320K (there might have been attendance/completion bonuses on top of that, but I only stayed there 4 months and can't now remember). Another agency that interviewed me early this year was also offering 320K for what sounded like at least as much work - I said no thanks.
http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/job/viewtopic.php?p=471342#471342

Glenski · Joined: 15 Jan 2003 Posts: 12844 Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN

fluffyhamster · Posted: Mon Nov 27, 2006 5:13 am Post subject:

Ah yes, I vaguely recall your survey, Glenski. I should have a(nother) look at it (if I can find it), might make for interesting reading beyond the potted results (thanks!) you've mentioned here.

Oh, the school I worked at for 4 months only (years ago now) was the really sh*te one that didn't disclose the half of it at the interview and contract stages. I suppose that ultimately, it wasn't backbreaking work for a private J-SHS (and I can be a bit of a perfectionist sometimes), but I really objected to it and wasn't going to act as if nothing was wrong when they were so unpleasant with it...definitely not a nice place to work at. Anyway, you can "read all about it" on the "whinger?" thread (if you haven't done so already), and wherever I later mentioned it (do a search for 'whinger').

The other, more recent school that I only interviewed with would probably have been a nicer place to work at, but the workload sounded even heavier than the aforementioned job, and I don't know quite who'd have gone into that "fully" informed yet without expressing any reservations, especially if they'd have had a fair bit of travelling time each way (relocation would've been at my own expense, as I recall) - I mean, how many private schools have only a single lone FT native-speaker teacher to cover 3 whole grades? Would've been working late ne!

Granted, that could be an exciting, challenging job, but there'd be a danger of the job becoming your life (moreso than for even the most dedicated of Japanese teachers).

The head native guy at that sh*te school had been there as a JET or "ALT only" or something prior to the school going private (or becoming such a seppuku-sh*tai center of "learning"), so he'd had plenty of time to slowly adapt to it (and also to adapt things somewhat to more suit himself). There's nothing worse than going into "something" when it's all somebody else's half-baked grandiose plans that are needing to be implemented (but they won't be the one doing all the work and struggling with whatever "unforseen" problems inevitably arise...).