Job Discussion Forums

[canuck]

It means that you should find a better job.

[c-way]

Is that really the best you can do?

I don't know, I actually like my job. And for the people who aren't planning on making a career of teaching or a life in Japan, I'd say ECC Best Careers is right up their alley.

On average, I have about 1 hour of prep time for every lesson I teach. and because I pretty much teach the same type of lesson to each class, I find that my workload is pretty scant compared to a lot of other teachers.

And I personally enjoy the big gaps when I'm not working so that I can pursue my own interests. and how many other jobs are there out there where you start work at 8:30 and are finished by 3:15.

The pay is pretty comparable to other positions and I supplement my income with private lessons. So I don't have to budget my money closely and I have more autonomy over my schedule than a teacher who works full time at one company.

Yeah, there's obviously negatives, but I don't place too much stock in people who look at a job and say "That job sucks. I mean, It's not even perfect".

Show me a job that doesn't have any drawbacks and I'll guarantee there will be some posters to step up and say: "That job sucks. I mean, it's way too perfect."

[yamanote senbei]

[chirp]

[yamanote senbei]

If someone breaks into your apartment and steals your TV, do you sit on your zabuton waiting to for the government to do something about it (a theft that they know nothing about), or do you go to the police and report it?

Now if you and your neighbours all had their TVs stolen in the same week and all of you went to report it to the police, you'd logically expect some action. If all of you stayed at home and told no one, what would you logically expect?

Illegal dispatch is a crime with penalties that include fines and incarceration.

[furiousmilksheikali]

[chirp]

[c-way]

Haha,

I didn't notice the irony of my statement, but it's still pretty dead on.

What I meant was that this is not the kind of job for career teachers. I think all teachers would benefit from taking an intimate look at the public school system in Japan, but a career teacher is going to see no benefits, large gaps of unpaid time during the year and no chance for improved pay or full time work and they are going to shy away from it. Rightfully so.

But for another kind of teacher who doesn't want to teach their entire life and is more or less trying to afford their experience in Japan for the short time that they are here, I think this type of job is ideal.

But back to the legality issue, I'm not so concerned as to whether it's illegal or not. Obviously I'm not the one knowingly breaking the law, so what do I care. What I'm curious about is why this type of arrangement would be illegal.

If someone broke into my house and stole my tv. I'm definitely calling the police.

But, if someone broke into my house, brought me a tv and massaged my feet, While technically still a crime, I'd probably let it slide.

[yamanote senbei]

I'll turn the question around and ask who has turned anyone in? The officials won't know it's going on until you turn the someone in and if they don't know, they can't do anything about it.

If you read Japanese there's quite a lot on the subject, although not all that much on illegal dispatch in the education industry. Here's something from the Zenkyoren, the National Private School Teachers Union, in 2004:

http://www.zenkyo.org/shikyoren/haken.htm

Under the ALT section, Sagan Speak and Interac are mentioned by name as doing illegal dispatch in Tokyo. At the bottom of the page, it mentions that each school uncovered, not just the ones serviced by Sagan Speak and Interac, had been notified by Tokyo to cease receiving illegally dispatched teachers.

If you want to do something about it, here's a good place to start. At the bottom there are links to labour bureaus around the country.

http://www.roudoukyoku.go.jp/campaign/index.html

[yamanote senbei]

[b00kwheat]

I've heard there are 2 months unpaid working for ECC Best Careers (even for Full Time contracts). Is this true?

[furiousmilksheikali]

What Interac, ECC Best Careers (I can't hear that, say that, read that or type that without having to suppress a belly laugh!), W5, ZIAC and all the other dispatch companies sell themselves on is the fact that they can provide teachers to any school that requires an ALT and will continue to provide ALTs if the BOE or the schools don't like the ones they have.

If you choose to work for them (or be subcontracted by them) then you are basically choosing them to be your recruiter. They tell you where there is a job and send you off there. Every month, the BOE send these agencies a paypacket for your services, the agency says thankyou, reach into the envelope and take 100,000 yen and then give you the rest.

They tell you that during the summer and winter when the schools take vacations they will pay you less or not at all and rationalize to you that that's fair as you weren't working. You say "Well I can't argue with that" and during the summer the BOEs will send exactly the same paypacket to these agencies. In the case of Interac they will reach into the envelope and take out more cash. In the case of a few others they will shove the whole lot under their matress.

You are essentially paying the fees to your recruitment agent of anything between 100,000 yen to 300,000 yen a month!

[c-way]

touche ( I don't know how to spell that word)

You both make a pretty irrefutable point when it comes to how much ECC is skimming off my work and toil while doing very little work themselves. I am, and have been, aware of the fact that ECC is getting a huge portion of the amount of money that is paid for my work each month (half?, more?, who knows). And I definitely think that of the three parties involved, ECC Best Careers, the BoE, and the teacher, the teacher is getting the by far shortest end of the stick. Thanks for helping me understand.

About the only rebuttal I can muster for this 5 ton elephant in the room is that at no time did ECC misrepresent to me the pay or the stipulations of my contract. I was never told A only to find that B was the case. My pay, working hours, working time, and working conditions are everything that ECC said they would be. I'm not trying to defend the fact that ECC is splitting my payment with me and taking a huge portion, just that I was not hoodwinked or tricked into doing anything I didn't want to do.

So is this "stealing"? I'm not sure. Is the net income, after all its expenses, that an eikawa makes from the work of its teachers the amount that it steals from them? Should the amount that a company makes from the services of its employees be the deciding factor in whether a company is making a profit, as it should be trying to do, or exploiting its teachers, which in this case is illegal? And if I were being paid the extra 100,000 to 300,000 yen each month that ali has referred to, wouldn't some say that I was stealing from the BoE bc/ everyone knows that I would be willing to do the same work for far less.

And this leads to other complications. For instance, let's say that the BoE was directly hiring teachers and paying them the entire amount that they pay to ECC now. Suddenly, my job would be one of the hottest gigs in the country. Teachers would be lining up from far and wide to get the cushy part time position that pays its teachers about the same amount the full time ECC suckers are getting. With so many applicants, the BoE would have its pick of the litter in terms of qualifications, experience, and Japanese ability (bc/ it is useful). With my limited amount of each, I would probably be forced out of this position. Lucky me, I found an even shorter end of the stick.

To take it further, the BoE knows that there job is highly coveted by teachers because the amount of applicants and the high qualifications of some of those applicants. SO, to get more bang for their apparently undervalued buck, they might want to increase the hours that the teacher comes to school (making it closer to full-time Japanese teachers). They might also require that the ALT take on some of the responsibilities outside of the classroom that normal teachers in Japan have. And in order to be able to carry out these responsibilities, they may require that an applicant have a certain level of Japanese proficiency in order to get the job. You're of course paid for the summer vacation, but now, like normal Japanese teachers, you will be made to come to school during that time to tutor, host club activities or do a number of other menial tasks.

I'm not saying that this is a bad thing. In fact it might be just what the public schools need. ALT positions that attract the best, brightest, and most dedicated of our lot. But if I were getting the kind of pay that you guys are hinting at, I can almost guarantee that the expectations and responsibilities of my job would change drastically. and rightfully so.

I probably wouldn't even have the time to spend the first hour of my day typing this entirely too long post, then accidentally deleting it, and retyping it again. Whose stealing from who?

[littleturtle]

Long time lurker, first time poster.

Who, precisely, is reporting Boards of Education for using illegal gyomu itaku contracts?

And who do you report them to?

[furiousmilksheikali]