Job Discussion Forums

[turtlenecks]

Hi everyone,


Has anyone had any experience working for KBS?
Good, bad, ugly?

Thanks

[robertokun]

Umm, they were the second worst ALT dispatch company in Fukuoka prefecture, and they were supposed to lose all their junior high contracts to Interac this past year (Not sure which month the switchover was happening, but I knew several people who worked for them who were all informed by KBC that this was indeed happening.) It seemed probable that any high school contracts were getting taken over by JET this Fall, as the worst dispatch company in Fukuoka prefecture lost all their SHS contracts to JET (and has since been sighted moving into Hiroshima and Saga--seems like KBC might be following suit and fleeing the prefecture.) Um yeah, if you're still reading--no health insurance, no transportation, draconian illegal contracts, etc. Long story short, stay far, far away from them . . .

p.s. If you need to go to Japan for whatever reason and are still considering them, feel free to contact the Fukuoka general union about them.

[Stateliner]

The three main players in the market are OWLS, Interac and KBS. I second and third that reccomendation that if you have to sign on with any of these you should strongly consider union representation in the Fukuoka General Union. I know the most about KBS but I can tell you all three companies have serious professionalism issues. KBS is quite a looney bin. There is a mysterious president named Takako Abe who never seems to show her face. There are ALTs who have worked there for quite a while and left and never recalled meeting her.

[Stateliner]

Of the three I mentioned in my previous, KBS due to its size has done the best avoiding the wrath of the union. But from 2010, there are a lot of greivances and its backlogged. The Fukuoka General Union fukuoka.generalunion.org has scored a recent victory against Owls who were deducting 114k from the last paycheck as a penalty for not completing the year contract. This evidentally was found to be illegal. Interesting news about Interac and the implications of another company buying them out. You should go to the generalunion.org site with the help of somebody who can read Japanese to make heads and tails out of it. There are questions floating around whether whether Interac jobs are airtight with these news developments. Seems their parent company is trying to sell the company to some big Investment fund. I cant make out what is happening, but Im going to stay tuned.

[jar]

Anyone worked for KBS recently at all? Still one to avoid?

[Mr_Monkey]

You've already been told that they are perceived as shitbags.

What more do you need?