Job Discussion Forums

[taikibansei]

Sody, I know of--indeed, have worked for--US companies with stricter attendance policies...especially for those workers still on probation. So, in a business setting, I could certainly see this happening.

However, this is a school, and frankly, a lot of what you've shared doesn't make sense to me. You're apparently get paid for being 30 minutes early, but while on probation must check in "1 hour early"?! So, they're getting at least 30 minutes of unpaid work from you each day, right? And really, do you need 1 hour of onsite preparation to teach your classes? Finally, while you're "almost 100% positive" that Japanese are treated the same, I'm almost 100% positive that Japanese faculty/staff would not have been threatened with termination in your situation.

I think the consensus here is to find another school. There are quite a few in Japan. From your posts, you seem like a diligent and articulate person--I'm sure you'll find something better pretty quickly.

[guest of Japan]

I'd like to reiterate a few points to Sody.

1. They can not force you to resign. If they try - refuse. Make them fire you. If you resign you get nothing. If you get fired you get 30 days severence pay in lieu of 30 days notice, and you become eligible to recieve unemployment insurance after one month if you have been paying into it, which you are supposedly legally obligated to do. Unlike working in a western country their is no advantage to resigning over getting fired in the eikaiwa industry. For the most part Japanese never check references, and dismissal would actually be preferable to contract breaking as long as it is not for something serious. Additionally, a firing for such a trivial matter could be easily contested in court as the lateness could not be construed as chronic (though you would need an enormous amount of patience and determination to go this route).

2. This is not a normal system. This is a system of control and intimidation. As Taikibansei said, Nova is not the standard bearer of Japanese worker values. Their fining for lateness of 4 lessons is the maximim legal fine level. A fine in Japan for things like lateness cannot exceed half a days pay or 10% of the monthy salary. All fines should follow written warning. Docking pay for lateness is not a fine, though quite silly when they say you are getting paid a salary. Probationary periods do not mean that you are given new responsibilities. Changes in the contract not agreed upon by both parties is illegal and grounds for immediate resignation.

3. Once again the Japanese opinion on lateness can be strict, but not to the level you are describing.

4. You are working for a bad company, but don't feel like you are somehow unlucky. Bad companies are becoming the norm in Japan. Companies like Nova used to be the standard bearer as a bad place to teach. Now, without it ever changing, it is becoming a safe dependable company because due to it's massive size it cannot attempt the illegal and devious trickery that many smaller companies are doing.

5. Your job decription sounds horrid.

[PAULH]

My second line of defence would also be to consider joining a teachers union. Many dont as they dont plan to stick around their companies or Japan very long or feel intimidated about standing up to their employers.

a couple of points.

1. Belonging to a union is cheap. In Osaka it costs 36,000 yen a year or less than 1% of your annual salary. You could buy 3 or 4 beers for what you pay in union fees each month.

2. Joining a union is quite legal. Some of the biggest trade unions in japan have millions of members and many companies have in-house unions.

3. You can not be fired for joining a union, nor can your employer harass you.

4. By law your employer is not required to negotiate with you as an individual employee but he is required to negotiate with a union or its chapter. If this kind of behavior is endemic in your company it may be worth your while to join a union, set up a branch in your work place and then confront your employer head on. By law he will have to deal with it and not use bully tactics. I currently work at a university that has employed the same tactics against striking workers and has now landed itself in court fighting a lawsuit and has beeen plastered all over the japanese press as the bad guy. Employers HATE confrontation and bad publicity. They think you dont have it as the new gaijin in town but if you have legal backing behind you toy have some clout.

5. You can take your employer to court and WIN. Its expensive, time consuming and costs money. I know one guy fought his employer for 2 years, they fired him but they had to pay his full salary while they duked it out in court. he eventually won and received back pay as well. teachers simply need to know their rights and develop some backbone.

6. If you let him walk all over you it means hes doing it to other people and making it a rather stressful workplace. It doesnt have to be that way, though many teachers just simply quit or put up with it. If you let him know that what hes doing is illegal, with a phone call from the union or the Labor Standards office, you might see a change in his behavior.

[Apsara]

Hi Sody, I'm not saying I support Nova's system at all- there are many good reasons I don't work for them anymore! Just saying your school isn't the only one. I'm sure Nova's lateness thing is illegal, but sooo many teachers turned up late with hangovers (or didn't make it at all) while I was working there that I suppose they think they have to do something to try to deter it...

[gaijinalways]

That's a new one on me. At my school we do get lectured about these things if it becomes habitual. I would imagine because at your school you have to open up and they pay you to come prior to your lesson, they have a reason to be strict about coming on time, but..threatening to fire you after being late once if it happens again..?!

Listen to the voices of experience, find a new school and then hand in your notice, make sure you give them the legal 2 weeks minimum. And don't tell anyone there where you are going unless you trust them a lot until after you're settled into the new job. Former employers in Japan will sometimes try to sabatoge your new job (especially if you didn't finish your contract, but who would want to under those circumstances).

[Sody]

Once again, a lot of really great advice. I'm grateful.

Taikibansei, while on probation I have to call the head office from the school one hour before the class starts. They don't actually call it "probation," they call it "status one." I just called it probation because if I'm late again I will be asked to resign.

Other than the forced resignation, I'm ok with this policy because with this company you are scheduled for less hours than most other companies anyhow. Even with the one hour prior to the class I still work on average less than 25 hours a week. I get paid a little less salary, 250K Yen a month but there are days when I have only two classes so my whole work day is very short. Now obviously I don't need that extra time to prep my lessons. But you know what? I'm ok with it. It never hurts to be early, heck in Canada I would sometimes come to work early and not get paid for it so it's no big deal. I've given what you've said a lot of thought and I'm pretty sure you are right. The Japanese teachers would not be asked to resign but there's no point in questioning the fairness of that policy (more on this later). Thanks for the kind compliments!

Guest of Japan and PaulH, god bless you guys!!!!!!! Your advice is golden. Even if no further incidents happen I am grateful as hell that I have options if things go bad. I'm counting on the fact that they never will but it's great to know that I don't have to resign I have a friend or two also on "probation," and they will be very happy to hear this as well.

Apsara, I understand and I didn't think you were supporting Nova, no worries The company I work for uses a point system basically. You get four points to start and if you lose all four points they expect you to resign. I lost two points because a customer was kept waiting and I lost another point because I didn't call to say I would be late. Unfortunately, I lose around seven thousand something yen of bonus money for each point I lose. So I basically lost around twenty something thousand yen. I'm pretty certain that it ain't standard procedure in Japan but at least they didn't expect me to resign immediately. In any case I sympathize with you and understand your points.

I hear ya gaijinalways. I'm not entirely sure I will work for another Japanese company again but it's great advice in case I do. I doubt I will have any problems though, the employees are very nice. Honestly, I have no real complaints about the company other than this one thing and I was pretty content working for them until now.

I've come to terms with everything that has happened and I have talked it over with other gaijin from other companies as well. After giving it a lot of thought I don't think it's such a big deal anymore. It was probably a waste to get upset about it as well. From what I hear most eikawas don't care at all about their employees. The thing that bothers me is that on a very basic level what happened was based on discrimination to some degree. Because some former native teacher(s) came to work late and embarrassed the company they are forced to implement such strict measures. That is my understanding at least. It is frustrating because why must I suffer for the sins of former teachers? Pretty stupid that they lump us all together. Oh well that is life in Japan I guess. I think I will be glad and relieved once I leave this company.

Sody

[J.]

This was a duplicate post so I edited it out. Anyone know how to delete posts?

[J.]

Sigh. These kinds of tactics sound all too familiar to me; I experienced an extremely "toxic" work place when I was at an eikaiwa. My boss was full of ways to intimidate and tricky deductions too. Get this: I was also a conscientious worker and they were pleased with my performance, but on the day I got a telegram that my father had died, on the way to work, and went to the office and broke down in tears and told them I would need the day off, the boss called me on my keitei and tried to force me to come back to work. I told him I was too upset to work and would need the one day off. I went to work the next day because there were no replacements and they docked my pay!!! My solution was also to leave at the end of my contract. I wish I had known about the union then but I felt pretty powerless to protest and had no information about the laws at that time, which I think these kinds of bosses are counting on. I just wonder how long this company has been pulling this on its workers with no repercussions? The unfortunate truth is that for many of us, living in a country where we feel pretty powerless, not understanding the work culture or language, it's hard enough to survive and live day to day without even trying to take companies to court. And this person would have to plan to spend a few years here in order to do that, if they had the finances and will to do it. It's just not practical for many. What we really need are laws to protect "foreign" workers and a labour board with the teeth to enforce them. And thank G** for the unions.

[kowlooner]

All the responses here have automatically assumed that what has been said is all there is to the story and therefore the school in question is evil / shady / just out to use and abuse foreign teachers for the sake of a quick buck. Is it possible that certain key facts have been omitted? No disrespect intended to the original poster, but it seems everybody has been quite quick to attack the school and in some cases suggest less-than-professional methods of reprisal.

Besides, we may feel that being late is acceptable once in a while, but from a Japanese perspective (both employer and employee), and perhaps one not just limited to Japanese, it is not. The same is true for wanting time off due to grieving over the loss of a family member. Financial reasons certainly come into play (a missed class means the service is not performed and revenue is not generated, and every dollar counts in a business), but there is more to it than that: such is simply not done.

We as westerners (broad assumption) are perhaps a bit too used to asking for personal exception based on extenuating circumstances.

Personally, I figure in both the original case and the just-mentioned one by J., the response by the school was a bit harsh, assuming the stories were accurate and complete. However, we can't assume that was all there was to the story, and even if it was we shouldn't be so quick to trash the school for not living up (is it really "up"?) to our western standards of fairness.

[guest of Japan]

Kowlooner, most of us who have responded to this thread have been in Japan for quite a long time and I assure you we are talking about companies living up to Japanese standards and Japanese laws.

[Sody]

Kowlooner, I think I understand what you are saying but I am not bad mouthing the company. Nor am I entertaining the idea that I should take less than professional methods of revenge against them. If I wanted to make this company look bad wouldn't I simply just bad mouth them on the forums? Worse, I could seriously bad mouth the company to the clients. I would be no different from several hundred former Nova employees who felt the need to vent against their former employer. But I guess with twenty something posts on this forum, it shouldn't be too hard to figure out what company I work for.

I have no problems with the company other than I find their policy on lateness to be too strict. I wanted feedback on whether the policy was appropriate or not. It wasn't. If you can't see that then something is wrong with your viewpoint. Yes, it is true that I made the mistake of applying Canadian work values and norms to a Japanese company, but listen to all the feedback in this thread. It is NOT the norm for an employee in Japan to be expected to resign for coming in late twice in a one year period. This is true of most salary based jobs in Japan that are contract based. In NA there is an increasing trend to hire on contract as well but even with the contracts here in Japan it is not normal to be expected to resign under such conditions. So your point isn't valid.

I can relate to your questioning the authenticity of my story. Before I came to Japan I read so many bad stories about how a company in Japan or Korea screwed over a native teacher. I often wondered whether these stories were true or not. I'm sure not all of them were. Perhaps they were stories made up to ruin the reputation of a company, I don't know. There are a lot of disgruntled and angry teachers in Japan who want attention.

I have no hatred for my company at all. They have always paid on time, the employees are all nice, the work environment is safe and good. I was pretty happy until they pulled this cr*p on me. I can understand if I was a bad employee or I didn't care at all but this is not the way you instill trust and loyalty in your employees.

Frankly I don't give a d*mn whether you or anyone else on this forum believes me or not. I've given all the relevant facts as best as I know. My best advice to anyone reading these forums is to weigh everything you read with a grain of salt. It may be true, it may not be. If you really want to verify what I have written there is a pretty simple way of finding out. Simply PM anyone else on this forum who works for the same company as I do and ask them to verify the lateness policy. You will know whether I am telling the truth or whether I am full of hot air.

Sody

[Gordon]

Sody, take it easy. I think we all believe you here, with one exception. There is no reason to distrust you.
Get used to people questioning your motives, happens all the time.