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[PAULH]

A Thumbnail Sketch of the Private ALT System in Japan

In 1999, Dispatch Law was deregulated to allow dispatch companies to enter into other fields of work aside from the traditional industry of manufacturing. Education was one of these fields. Since then more and more local boards of education have turned to private ALT dispatching firms rather than using the JET program. In 2005, the Ministry of Education reported at shunto meetings that there are approximately 1500 ALTs from private dispatching companies teaching in Japan.

However, many of the contracts that local boards of education have signed with these companies are illegal gyomu itaku (service) contracts. These contracts violate Edcuation Law since the principal must be in charge of the teachers at his/her school, yet with such contracts the company is actually in charge, not the principal.

Some companies do have dispatch licenses, yet they may still sign an illegal gyomu itaku contract with the local board of education. In order to find out if your city is using illegal contracts, you can ask your local city hall to see the contracts. It is the right of any resident (non-Japanese or Japanese) to see these contracts.

In February 2005 a notice went out from the Ministry of Education to prefectural boards of education to advise them to tell local boards of education to hire ALTs directly and not to use illegal gyomu itaku contracts which violate Education Law.

Private Dispatch Companies
Interac is by far the largest company in the private ALT business and the industry leader with hundreds of ALTs throughout Japan. As of April 2005, they still have not been automatically placing their ALTs into the national health insurance and pension program (shakkai hoken) which is required by law. In May 2005, the Union officially declared a branch at Interac.

Often, smaller companies who do not have work rules, a properly selected employee's representative, and who otherwise violate Labor Standards Law continue to do business cheaply and undercut other bidders for ALT contracts, driving down the monthly salary from the Ministry of Justice's standard of 250,000 yen a month. The Union has fostered improvements for ALT companies such as Heart Corporation, TRILS and RCS, among others.

Local Boards of Education
The Union has been involved with several boards of education in the Kanto area including the Tokyo Board of Education, the Koga (in Ibaraki) Board of Education and the Fukaya (in Saitama) Board of Education. In the case versus the Tokyo Board of Education, the Union won a decision stating that the concerned directly hired ALTs were indeed legally classified as "workers" (rodosha) and not simply contractors. Further victories were achieved through the private companies that had contracts with the Koga and Fukaya boards of education.



First, a primer on the matter:

Recently, the National Union of General Workers (NUGW) has been in contact with numerous boards of education (BoE) in the Kansai, Kanto, Kyushu, and Tokai regions concerning their employment practices regarding Assistant English Teachers (AETs). Boards of Education currently hire teachers in three ways: direct employment (DE), along with two types of dispatch, HAKEN and ININ (illegal).

What's the difference?


Direct Employment means that the BoE hires you, pays you, and controls your workday. This is the ideal situation, because teachers know exactly where they stand in regards to their employment.


HAKEN
- Your employer is not the BoE, even though they control your work. You are hired by private company X which sends you to the BoE: X hires you and pays your salary, and the BoE trains you and directs your work.


ININ (GYOMU ITAKU KEIYAKU)
- The BoE is neither your employer, nor do they control your work. In this case X hires you, pays you, trains you, and controls your work: the BoE is simply the work location.

To make things even worse, a growing number of dispatch companies are now treating their employees as private companies - subcontractors. This kind of work is illegal and the dispatch companies are doing this only in order to deprive teachers of their full rights as employees under the labour laws.

So why does the difference matter?

You may be thinking, 'As long as I'm getting paid, why does it matter how I'm employed as long as I have a job and get my salary?' What many people don't see is that the way you're employed can have a dramatic impact on your employment security.

Let's have a look at the categories one by one:


Direct Employment
- There is no misunderstanding of who the employer is, and usually you are made aware of workplace regulations. Also, there is no argument about who the union should negotiate with, as there is only one possible employer. Job losses appear to be fewer and it's easier to negotiate if job losses do occur.

HAKEN


- Under this system, there may be different expectations on you because in a sense you have two bosses. In order to dispatch a teacher under the HAKEN system, the dispatching company must have a special license. The union believes that this is the only legal kind of dispatch allowed to school boards and universities (see below). Also, because this is supposed to be a temporary placement, after one year (three years as of January 1, 2004) the school board is required to stop using a dispatch agency and either make the job a direct hire or abolish the job itself. This is to ensure that schools don't keep people temporary forever. Many boards have disregarded this one year limit or claim that the dispatch is not HAKEN. The Osaka Prefectural Board's plan was to use HAKEN forever by leaving a gap between employment terms so that they could claim the jobs were temporary. This also leads to employment insecurity as the dispatch contracts need to be renewed each year. If your present employer loses the contract with the school board, you are out of a job.

ININ (ILLEGAL GYOMU ITAKU KEIYAKU)

- According to the Osaka Prefectural Board of Education, this system is illegal in any school board as it is a violation of the Education Law which does not allow teachers who are not under the control of the board of education to work in a school. Despite this, many school boards use this method as there is no limit on the length of time a teacher can be dispatched for (see below). This kind of employment is extremely insecure, as the dispatch contracts need to be renewed each year. If your present employer loses the school board contract, again, you are out of a job.



Diet Hearing on Foreign Workers

Hearing at the Diet with union and non-union foreign workers on human rights and labor law abuses focuses on ALT system woes.

(Tokyo, April 15) Union and non-union foreign workers gathered for a hearing at the Diet to voice their stories of human rights and labor law abuses in Japan to officials from the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry and Democratic Party House of Representatives Member Kazuo Inoue.

This was a follow-up to a similar hearing held last Dec. 3, 2004 with representatives from the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry and the House of Representatives. Deputy Secretary General of the National Union of General Workers Tokyo Nambu, Louis Carlet, called attention to systemic problems that foreign workers face in comparison to their Japanese counterparts, "The union receives far more unfair dismissal cases regarding foreigners than Japanese."

The Ministry of Education heard personal accounts involving assistant language teachers (ALTs). Some have been working on gyomu itaku contracts which the Ministry deemed to be illegal and notified prefectural Boards of Education in February 2005 to instruct local boards of education not to use the gyomu itaku scheme and to hire through appropriate channels.

The gyomu itaku contracts have plagued the ALT system since 1999 when private dispatching companies were allowed to outsource ALTs to local boards of education. However, many local boards of education have not required that the dispatching company to actually hold a dispatching license, thus avoiding signing proper haken kaisha (dispatch companies) contracts with companies.

Currently, there are approximately 1500 private company ALTs, compared with just over 3000 in the JET program. The privatization of the JET program has resulted in the gyomu itaku snafu which has put Ministry of Education officials at odds with Ministry of Labor officials, who dither on whether the system is illegal or not.

More ministerial and government meetings are expected throughout the year on the gyomu itaku issue.

Related thread:

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20041204a5.htm

Non-teaching outsourcing dispute: Love FM Radio Station and Gyomu Itaku contracts

http://fukuoka.generalunion.org/lovefm/

Dodgy dispatch


http://search.japantimes.co.jp/print/features/life2004/fl20041214zg.htm

I am an Assistant Language Teacher at a middle school outside of Tokyo. My employer is a large dispatch company, but I'm not sure if it has a dispatch license.

My manager told me the company has a "gyomu-itaku" or "entrusted service contract" with the local school board. One thing confusing me is whether I am under the authority of my employer, the middle school or both.

According to the nation's Education Law, all teachers should be under the authority of the principal and the local board of Education. Under a "gyomu-itaku" or "entrusted service contract," however, you are only under the authority of your employer.

This means the school cannot instruct you, give you orders, or ask for your removal, etc., since the ALT "service" is "entrusted" to your employer.

Imagine contracting with a company to renovate your bathroom. You would not instruct the wielder how to wield or ask the company to take back a particular pipe-fitter. You entrust the entire operation to the company.

The Education and Labor Ministries have declared that these "gyomu-itaku" contracts for ALTs violate Japan's Dispatch Law.

Unfortunately, boards of education and private companies all around the country have yet to get the message. Many schools apparently want to avoid the responsibility of directly hiring foreigners but want the right to fire at whim and will. And they do.

(From an online article)
http://www.fukuoka-now.com/features/article_display.php?fn_code=442452

Think English teaching is a cushy job? For some it still is, but if you are unlucky enough to be a non-JET ALT (Assistant Language Teacher), be prepared to be the meat in a sandwich between the Board of Education (BOE) and your employer -- the dispatch company -- as they squeeze you for all they can. The ALT system used to be the territory of the JET Program, in which the Japanese government invited teachers over, paid them 300,000yen per month and provided them with all the benefits to which regular Japanese workers are entitled. But with those extras the budget swelled to over 6 million yen per year, per JET, so many cities & towns have been farming out this work to cheaper, locally employed non-JET ALTs.

Here we face the problem of the middleman, or the dispatch company sub-contracted by the BOE to provide ALTs at a discount rate. The dispatch company then, after securing the "sub-contract" (itaku gyomu) recruits teachers -- you may have seen these ads in Fukuoka Now FORUMS or on the Rainbow Plaza bulletin board. While this seems legitimate, under closer scrutiny, the rot is revealed.

Through the Freedom of Information Act, I was able to collect a number of these contracts between local governments and these dispatch companies. I found a huge gap between what the company promises the city (in regard to working conditions for the teacher) and what they actually give the teacher. The major issue is shakai hoken (pension/health insurance scheme). The BOE makes the companies promise to enroll teachers in shakai hoken; but they never do, and thus, save on premiums and increase profits. The same goes for koyo hoken (employment insurance). The company by law must pay 50% of these premiums, but oftentimes they scare foreigners into thinking that this is dead money by claiming that one must be in the pension scheme for 25 years to make a claim, which is not exactly true. You can claim back up to three years of pension when you leave the country, 50% of which your company already paid. I estimate that a company with 40 teachers on their books can save up to 10 million yen per year through this illegal practice. The same goes for transport allowance. While the company receives 100%, teachers get...

The next problem is "who's the boss"? Dispatch companies employ teachers, so while they have an employer-employee relationship, the BOE (school) holds no legal relationship with the teacher. And while all workers in a school must be under the authority of the principal, in this situation, they are not. Also, if your company designates a method of teaching, but your team teacher tells you to do it another way, you could be in a position where you have to act against orders. This scenario has lead to dismissals through no real fault of the teacher. The Ministry of Education has sent a directive to all local governments telling them to stop this sub-contracting. I hope they follow orders and stop this practice of maru-nage (passing on the work lock-stock-and-barrel). But perhaps the most important issue here is job security. Most of these contracts are for less than a year, and sometimes only by a couple of days so the company can say that they don't continually employ you. Others are more brazen, giving 3-month contracts so teachers are unemployed over the school holidays. If a teacher complains about their conditions, their contract may not be renewed. I heard of one case in which a teacher demanded to be enrolled in shakai hoken, succeeded (his legal right), and was then told his services would not be needed the next year. Cities also like the idea of having different teachers, as one BOE official told me: "We get bored with the same teacher for three years, this way we can have fresh teachers".

So there you have it, a new system that keeps foreign English teachers on lower pay schemes, offers less job security with no chance for promotion, and is kept out of sight of the city. When I complained about the treatment of a non-JET ALT to a BOE officer, he responded, "It is a matter for the teacher and his employer, not us". While the handling of English teaching, just like text books, desks and uniforms, goes to the most attractive bidder, what happens to the "internationalization" they expect teachers to teach and students to learn. Only when they start giving foreign teachers their basic rights and stop treating them like disposable labor, will schools be places for learning about "kokusaika".

[PAULH]

From the General Union website

http://www.generalunion.org/news


Nishinomiya Board and YMCA Kick Off Shunto 2004

At the Nishinomiya Board of Education, General Union members who busted the cities five-year contract rule have started a new offensive against an offensive board of education. Knowing that the union beat the contract limits (previously teachers could only work for five years) and that it would be harder to get rid of teachers who have no limit on renewals and are 100% in the union, the board decided to subcontract some of the teaching jobs, and to none other than the worst of the worst dispatch companies, Zia Zenken. At most boards, ZIA sends out subcontractors and doesn't even recognize these teachers as employees, but rather subcontracts to teachers again on an individual basis. This no doubt is a way to replace all the union members with subcontractors as the teachers go home or change jobs and thereby bust the union.

Nishinomiya members won't accept this and have decided to charge against the board's illegal subcontracting methods (see the pullout section in this edition), and continue to fight for improvements in their working conditions.

What are the members' main demands?


Hire all the subcontractors properly by the board of education.
NO TO SUBCONTRACTING!


Provide the General Union with a union board and office on the board's premises, just like the other unions. KEEP US 100% UNION!


Negotiate the entirety of the 2004 employment contract with the union.
NO SUBSTANDARD CONTRACTS!


Provide a housing allowance to all the AET's (actually AET's hired through Nishinomiya's sister city's agreement have a housing allowance, while domestically hired AET's don't).

FAIR WORKING CONDITIONS!
Demands have now been sent to the Nishinomiya board and the General Union is awaiting the board's answers and their acceptance of collective bargaining. At the time of printing, the board has yet to say that they'll meet us but are using illegal stalling tactics. These stalling tactics will find them with both a large dispute and a possible legal case at the Osaka District Labour Commission.

This is a fight that is integral to the entirety of the General Union and the labour movement in general. If we are able to stop contracting out of jobs (just like we stopped the contract limits) at one board, it will encourage more workers in Japan to stand up and demand that their jobs are secure.

Nishinomiya Dispute Settled

In the last Union Voice, we reported that Nishinomiya Board of Education had, at the eleventh hour, approached the General Union with a peace proposal. The dispute was over a 40,000-yen pay cut and the non-renewal of the branch chair.

On 31 March, the day before the start of the new academic year, a division chief at the Board, Mr Santaya, intervened to make a one-package proposal for a total settlement to the dispute. If the union decided to reject it, the 40,000-yen pay cut would stand.

The new proposal offered:

A softening of the pay cut (eventually down to a 25,000-yen reduction per month), but with:
A 30-minute cut in working time per day
A reduction from 234 to 208 working days per year
An allocation of 21 paid holidays per year, as opposed to the proposed 10 + under the Labour Standards Law minimums.
Spring, summer and winter holidays become true holidays, in which teachers can travel or work part-time jobs.
A promise to continue to negotiate over a union office and notice board.
A written apology to the union for unfair labour practices and obstruction of the union? strike on 17 December 2003.
The branch chair would be rehired as a teacher trainer/planner for the ALT system, along with support for the Nishinomiya City International Section, with fewer hours than the teachers (2, but on a higher hourly rate, and with the freedom of working other part-time jobs. He would also have full Health Insurance, Pension, and Unemployment Insurance.

[PAULH]

Before you sign the contract ask yourself (and your future employer) these questions:


1. Ask what the teaching hours are and then what the working hours are. Some companies in ads state 25 hours a week. This is misleading because they leave you to assume its the working hours but in reality its the teaching hours only.

2. Ask what your schedule would be. Are you working a split shift(morning, nothing for a few hours then afternoon or evening) or straight through. Do you work 5 days a week or 6? etc etc. Are you required to be "on call" on your days off?

3. Vacation: How many weeks a year? National Holidays?

4. What kinds of classes are you teaching? At a kindergartens, conversation school, someone's home, ALT, corporate, etc etc?

5. Attire: What are you required to where while you teach? Do you have to change attire when you arrive? Do you have to wear a suit while you are doing all sorts of games and songs in the dead heat of summer to kids? etc etc

6. Conditions: Smoke free? Airconditioning? Large or small classes? Monitored on video or by staff/parents the whole lesson? Everyone sitting on the floor or in chair and tables? etc etc

7. How much prep time required? Paid for it or not? Are you required to do your prep at the school? Are you required to buy your own prep materials or make copies for things from your own pocket?

8. How much commute time to the school or company? (may be hard if you don't know where you will be living at first, so ask the average teacher's commute time) Do you commute to more than one location in a day? a week? a month?

9. Are you required to do any cleaning of classrooms, schools, toilets, trash, etc? (Don't laugh, I've known teachers that have had to clean toilets.)

10. Advertising: Are you required to stand out in front of stations or other areas handing out flyers to the school? Are those flying times in addition to your work schedule or part of it? Are you required to "market" the school or be a representative at the school at all times on your private time?

11. Are you required to attend extra activities or meetings on days off OR before or after your shift? Are you paid for it additionally or in the case of it being on a day off, are you given an alternate day off later?

12. Do they set you up with Shakkai Hoken(company copaid insurance). Do they tell you to take Traveler's Insurance?(which is basically illegal/cause you more problems if you stay long term in Japan later).

13. Do they put you in housing or let you choose your own? IF they have housing, ask to see the original rental agreement and make sure you are placed on there when you move in. If the apartment is actually owned by the comapany you work for, make sure you have a rental agreement with your name on it seperate from your work contract. This is to protect you incase they fire your etc, and attempt to throw you out the next day. By law you are given a minimum of 30 days with which to vacate. Also make sure that when you get your key, that if it is company owned place, you get the ONLY key. Teachers in some companies have had the manager waltz in when they feel like it. If you don't feel that agreement is honored, you can always buy adhesive alarms and other security precautions to protect your place and things.

14. Is travel reimbursed? If they don't then don't work for em... all are supposed to reimburse. Make sure as well they don't repay the reimbursement and "tax" it. That's illegal.

15. Are you required to transport lots of teaching materials to your schools(if you travel to more than once place). Are you required to buy and get reimbursed for materials. (Lugging 10-20 pounds of toys and game material for kids classes across 2 subway lines, a bus then a 20 minute walk in the dead of winter or summer is NOT a pleasant experience.)

16. Training: Do they have it? How many days of it before being put in a class? To give you a comparrison, ECC teachers are trained for a good week or so for their kids classes and then another week for admin stuff and adult classes.

17. Curriculum: Do they have one? Who made it and if its inhouse what are the credentials of the person who made it? (if you care about that, that is). Is it scripted(meaning you follow what the book tells you to do)? Are you just handed the material and told to sink or swim?

18. Classes: are you teaching mixed ages and mixed ability levels in the same class or seperate? How many per class? Parents or staff in the lessons on a frequent or every lesson? What materials are at your disposal in the class(white board, toys, tables etc)

19. Who is the longest working teacher at the company currently? How long have they been there? (This can give you an idea of turnover of people. Crappy places tend to have few to none working there past a year or two. Decent places have a more who have been longer. In the cases of really small schools, they may have only one or two teachers and you may not be able to get a firm idea of the quality of the school based on this.

20. Why is the position available? If a teacher was leaving, then why? You may not get a straight answer on this though. If they harp on talking about the last teacher in the position and in a negative way, then that should be something to be concerned about as well.

21. Can you be given a list of 3 current and 3 past teachers and contact information for those teachers. This is to see what they feel about the company. If they balk at giving you this information for any reason, be suspicious. It most likely means they have problems. If they the company is too new, then ask for the contact information of 3 current or past students of the school. If they are too new even for that, then ask for references for the company people themselves. (this might be met with alot of flack and could even make them not wish to consider you, but would you want to work for some place that wasn't comfortable with your asking these?

22. Japanese allowed to be used in the classroom? At the school at all? If not consider what the atmosphere of things are as to whether that's acceptable or not. I tend to not go with schools that do not allow the use of Japanese because in most cases its because they are "selling an image" instead of trying to teach someone English. Edutainment style attitudes in the industry are rampant. But this may not be an issue for you. If you're being sent to a kindergarten for example, you absolutely want to be able to speak Japanese since none at the kindergarten will speak English most likely. If its some conversation school with staff that speaks English, then you most likely fine with not being able to speak.

23. Are you required to do trial lessons? Are trial students placed in existing classes? Are you required to "sell" your class to a trial student?

24. Are there bonuses given? If so what are the conditions of the bonuses?

25. Is your pay deducted for lateness, sickness, or other reasons? How much (there are specific laws that detail how much can be taken. Suffice to say that they cannot exceed a certain percet of your monthly salary in total(though I can't remember the specific percent... its not much I can tell you that. There's an website in english that details it and paulh knows the link).

26. Are you required to pay for anything? Some idiotic companies make you pay for your training, or your class texts etc. Tell em to take a flying leap.

27. Are you evaluated on your performance during the year/contract? How is this carried out and what are the criterion of the evaluation? Subjective or objective?

28. Is there a "no socialization" policy? (Meaning you can be fired if you are seen spending time with students outside of the school area).

29. *VERY IMPORTANT* Make sure the information they give you MATCHES the conditions of your contract. Bait and switch techniques here are all too common. If they don't match ask why. If they don't let you take a contract home to look over and think about, be suspicious. But you can't even trust that always. They will play on your ignorance of Japanese laws and or assume you wouldn't fight them in the case of a dispute.


It is very important to remember there are very few standards in the industry governing the conditions for teachers etc. You could use conditions at ECC and the other big 4 Conversation schools to determine whether or not another school is good/bad, but in some cases you cannot do so if the school's business models are vastly different. Thus in those cases you are better off to decide what's best for you based on your own personal interest or needs.

But don't be desperate. That's where so many people make mistakes coming here. They want to come here so badly that they accept any conditions. Once here, and they realize the conditions are/were bad, they lament their situation.

[Nagoyaguy]

Great information, Paul. Thanks.

For people who find themselves working for this kind of company, what do you suggest? How do we find out our specific situation- go directly to the Board of Education and ask to see the contract signed between our 'parent company' and the city?

Personally, I would love to work directly for my city. So would my coworkers who also are employed in the schools here. There is fear of legal repercussions, though. Our company takes pains to warn us that attempting to 'hijack', as they call it, a contract, will be met with legal action.

[PAULH]

Interac Branch union website. Lots of useful info on National Union of General Workers

http://www.interacunion.org/