Job Discussion Forums

[Blixxa]

Hey all. Happy new year! I was wondering for those that worked AEON/NOVA/other english school of your choice, did you find a better job after at a public/private school? I am applying to a bunch of conversation schools if I don't get on JET and was wondering how the future looks if I wanted to stay longer in Japan.

Thanks!

[Glenski]

I spent 3.5 years working at an eikaiwa sort of school as my first teaching job in Japan, then moved on to a private high school. The pay was better in the HS, but the hours were much longer and harder. PM me if you want details.

[yamanote senbei]

[Alberta605]

I really do often wonder what life was like for people before they went to work at such chain schools.

I mean what motivates people to come and work in Japan? I'd really like to undertake a massive survey on this mostly because im so massively nosey.

As for life after chain schools, there is of course a multitude of opportunities out there. Some small conversation schools are a joke, others are acceptable but all depend on your personal understandings of what a meaningful days work for a fair wage is.

[rai]

Actually, I encourage people who want to come to Japan to first get a job at a chain school. Sure the jobs can be a pain sometimes (what job isn't?) but they help set you up in Japan with an apartment and everything else you need. After you get settled in, you can start looking for a new job (keep in mind that a lot of jobs will only hire you if you are already in Japan).

I did six months at Nova before jumping ship to a new job, but although Nova wasn't for me I never regretted the experience. And I know some people who stayed at Nova for years and seemed to like it, so you never know. To each his own.

[Glenski]

[yamanote senbei]

There's no difference between "contract salary basis" and hourly if you are an employee in Japan, Glenski. Read Article 32 of the Labour Standards Law.

All work done over forty hours a week must be paid, and paid at 125%. The overtime premium can even be higher depending on when the overtime work is done.

Even voluntary overtime, working more than forty hours a week, is illegal without an Article 36 agreement between the employer, a majority trade union or a majority workers' representative.

[Mark]

[yamanote senbei]

Like I've written before Mark, several large companies were busted last year and had to pay up for unpaid overtime. McDonalds was one of them. The payment were so large in fact, that it moved them from being profitable for last year into having a significant one time loss.

There are two parties to blame here: the employers, for not paying for overtime when it is worked, and the employees, for not reporting their employers when they don't pay up. If the employees don't complain, there won't be any changes.

[anh]

[Glenski]

Labour laws (for those of you who don't know where to find them):
http://www.jil.go.jp/english/laborinfo/library/documents/llj_law1-rev.pdf


Article 32 says 40 hours per week, or 8 hours per day.
This is an abbreviated version, as one may count an average number of those days or hours over the course of a month in some situations.

Now, as to reality, the key phrase I think we are talking about here is highlighted in red below (my highlight):

...an employer shall not have a worker work more than...

We all know that in full-time jobs at universities and high schools, most teachers voluntarily choose to work longer hours than 40 per week. No employer is demanding it. So, if you choose to work "overtime", on your own volition and for whatever reasons, you are not being mandated to do so by your employer, so you shouldn't get any official overtime pay.

If every HS and university teacher (especially research scientists), including the Japanese ones, asked for overtime pay, the country would go bankrupt in a week. They choose to stay there, and part of the reason may indeed be a heavy workload, but are they being told to stay? No.

Like Mark wrote, does anyone (meaning, any Japanese business, not school) really take these laws seriously? We all know how businessmen put in long hours, whether they are actually working or not (or just staying there because the boss is too afraid to go home to his wife). I don't know if they put in overtime for that or not. I'd suspect not in most cases. If the boss ordered them to stay, that's another story. Japan's bureau of statistics shows normal working hours vs. overtime hours, but Japan also is notorious for skewing its statistics. I don't trust them very much for both reasons above, and I use them only as a general indicator.

I wonder what the "labor laws" are back home (USA). People put in their own time in many businesses and universities and don't ask for overtime. I recall my last 2 jobs in the States as a researcher. I got paid a fixed salary for no matter how many hours I worked, including weekends and nights. I got paid for getting the job done. The only respite I had was twofold:
1) flexi-time, meaning I could essentially come and go as I pleased, and
2) a rare boss who recognized my efforts and told me to take off a day here and there without losing any vacation or sick time for it.

[yamanote senbei]

It could be productive if we restart the overtime discussion in a new thread.

[taikibansei]

[ripslyme]

[yamanote senbei]

Since the overtime discussion has taken a turn into an area that has very little to do with chain schools, I've replied in a new thread:

http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/job/viewtopic.php?t=47620