Job Discussion Forums

[zues]

Here are the new contract terms (translated for reality):

Dear teacher,

In an attempt to not address the increased cost-of-living, as new taxes have increased in Japan, we would like to specifically tell you, to your face, in writing, how we are not giving you a surviving chance to make it in Japan as an Interac teacher. Here are the changes for the 2014 - 2015 school year:

1. No pay raises for anyone. the same old pay, no matter how long you have been with us or the quality of your work. We have never given raises but let this be clear, we never will. We realize it may help you but we want to pad the pockets of our Japanese owners, not yours. We understand they are disconnected from you completely but they are very much connected to the revenue your work attains. We also view your tenure equal to that of someone who just graduated, has no experience, and/or photocopied a fake diploma and lied during the interview process.. you have a family and new children coming soon.. we recommend recycle shops for used clothes, sieyu for food, and pressure from your partners family to do more for your family to survive..

2. New teachers, welcome to Interac. To alienate you immediately and start on sketchy terms, your august pay is 50%, not the 60% that we have always given in past years. Returning teachers, you still get 60% pay for august, BUT….. and check this out… if you would like 2 more days of summer break, you can opt to reduce your pay from 60% to 50%! great huh?! Never mind these 2 days are "work days" meaning you already have them off!! We think you are just stupid enough to take a pay cut to get 2 days off that you already have off. And we will show you how stupid we think you are by offering this directly to your face, in writing. Honestly, we are not sure you can read hence our brazenness in actually making this offer in writing. Oh, and if you opt to take the pay cut for the 2 days off, you cannot return to 60% August pay in the future! great huh?! we are flexible in offering you options to how we rip you off.

3. AUGUST... it's a great time of year to maybe?? or maybe not?? call you in for "work days" so to try to confound you (and ourselves) we are listing summer as "Work Days" AND now..... introducing.... "TBA" (ooohhhhh, ahhhhhh gasps the crowd) for your summer break.. TBA >> sounds official huh?! we figure, we are gonna try to get your money no matter and TBA sounds like there is actually something happening during those dates.. but really it's a scare tactic for us to try to get you to tell us ALLLLLLLLL your travel plans for summer so we DO NOT HAVE TO PAY YOU for those days.... in the past everything was listed as "Summer Holiday" or "Work Days".. and we asked that you tell us all your travel plans for work days while your summer holidays were yours alone. we realized we weren't capturing enough of your summer travel plans which we can deduct from your pay. so now, we think you will suddenly up and tell us your travel plans for the entire summer because "TBA" really puts you in a spot doesn't it! what we are trying to do is 1. make more money and 2. penalize you for making ANY plans at all during summer... so, no more "summer holidays" for you!! later in the year, before summer, we will send you an email requesting you to tell us ALLLL your travel plans for the entire summer.. we think you are just dumb enough to do that!! (please don't call our bluff by not telling us, up front, when you are not available for work because of your travel plans. we are bluffing. you basically will have no assignments during this time period.. and what we really don't want you to do is: when we contact you for an unspecified assignment for a future date (unspecified because it likely doesn't exist), which we throw out to try and catch your unreported travel plans, ignore them up until that very date, because we will likely not contact you for work that day. so please, PLEASE tell us immediately, all your travel plans even if we have no intention of calling you in that day).

4. Christmas Break!!! tis the season to dock your pay in anyway possible!
if you read our changes for August (#3), it's more of the same for the winter break. we have done away with "Winter Holiday" and replaced that with TBA... we expect you will not have learned from how we gauged you during summer so we are trying the same play from our new playbook in the same year on you! we think you are stupid enough to tell us, voluntarily, all your holiday travel plans for the whole year! so we don't have to pay you for that time... man, you alt's look stupid!!!

5. We have changed ownership, again. Our new owners are a publicly traded company on the Japanese stock market! We figured, lets use the Japanese governments funding (our revenue source) to gamble ourselves as an investment vehicle... our forecasts and long term projections for our first fiscal year:

Q1: we beat earnings estimates by 6 yen because of an expanding teacher base to cover the new ES lower level hiring across Japan

Q2: the street projects earnings of - .20yen. We miss estimates by 100yen (-1.20yen) as the reality of using English education as an investment vehicle crashes and burns, failing to recognize the mistakes of past companies.

Q3/Q4: repeat ad nauseam

After these losses, the monies Interac provides our company (on the backs of the government via BOE's) will be pooled in larger/riskier endeavors to endanger the government’s funding our future altogether. In the works: More whaling of the southern ocean (we know now it’s really illegal but we are investing in new signs which say “scientific research, seriously!”), new gas pedals for toyota’s, re-integration of fukushima land for farming and a tsunami based theme park, and an electric generator/battery which captures the happiness emitted from tokyo residents. We think we will be highly profitable with such ideas and we will spend your BOE’s money to prove it.

Our teachers will struggle but who cares about them, sorry, you. We want to pick the losing financial sector of public school English education to assure initial mediocre returns followed by deepening losses. Our taiken is you, everyday, selling for us and the BOE... the unknowing participant using government money to drive our profit loss. In the coming years, as our investment sours and fails to yield returns, we will pass on our losses to you, the white teacher we don’t care about..

[steki47]

Nice and bitter-love it! A+!

[kah5217]

Now you see why I decided to go home. I felt sorry for the school, but with the tax increase, income tax going up, and shafted pay, it wasn't doable anymore.

[Solar Strength]

I was reading an article over at the BEGUNTO union website and Berlitz had a nice profit in 2012 - 2013 and still did not offer raises to the instructors there.

Staff and management get nice bonuses, however.

kah5217,

Yes, tax is up to 8% on sales now with plans to take it up to 10%.

Unfortunately, eikaiwa work was never meant to be nothing more than a 1 or 3 year work and travel type experience. And the companies make damn sure to make it hard for people to stay long-term.

I hope unions are eventually successful in eradicating the scumbag dispatch companies like Interac, Westegate, etc., but there are so many of them now. Sadly, however, it appears that they won't be going away any time soon.

[mitsui]

As much as I don`t care for dispatch companies, they deal with foreign teachers when schools feel it is a hassle to deal with foreign people.
Dispatch companies do take a cut of the teacher`s pay which sucks, but thanks to them, they found a job for teachers.

[rxk22]

[mitsui]

How about in Tokyo? ALTs in Tokyo can get paid by the hour now.
Guess that is a way to avoid paying for health insurance.

[fluffyhamster]

[Inflames]

With a dispatch contract, only the dispatch company can legally interview candidates, the original company legally has no say in the process (like most labor laws in Japan, this is blatantly ignored).

One of the big things a dispatch company has going for them is that a lot of foreigners will just up and quit - even universities have trouble with foreigners quitting in the middle of their contract.

[nightsintodreams]

And why shouldn' ALTs up and quit as they please? We're talking about jobs that at best have around a five year limit, at which point said ALT will be thrown back into the wild to fend for him or herself.

If they were given full tenure and the secuirty that comes with it perhaps they'd think twice before quitting.

[steki47]

[teacheratlarge]

I think at the uni level, it's rare to up and quit. At one time, maybe 20 years ago, it was more common. Nowadays, it's very rare.

[Inflames]

[rxk22]

I guess Interac wants to give Heart a run for it's money, as far as being a terrible dispatch company goes.


And yes, Japan needs to focus on quality not on young)(and being of teachers if it ever wants to grasp English and be competitive internationally

[fluffyhamster]