Instead, you should enroll into Shakai Hoken, because Interac will be forced to pay their half. If there is any back enrollment it will be covered by the company, not by you. You are all eligible for this. The only reason Interac tells you otherwise is because they don’t want to pay their portion of the money.

You can do this on your own, or you can join the “Interac union” (aka members of the Zenkoku Ippan Tokyo General Union Tozen ALTs) and we can force them to pay up together in solidarity. The Tokyo General Union has a lot of experience in forcing companies to enroll their employees into Shakai Hoken so we can get you enrolled with much less effort on you part.

Solidarity,
Erich

http://interacunion.org

interacunion@gmail.com

An open letter to the management of Interac (as well as Maxceed and Selnate)

November 5th, 2009

To whom it may concern (including Kevin Salthouse and Denis Cusack),

My name is Erich, and I am an executive of the ALT branch of Tokyo Nambu’s Foreign Workers Caucus. I worked for Interac  from September of 2005 until February 2008, under the Osaka branch.

I am writing to clear up some misconceptions about health insurance in Japan that were evident in a couple of PDFs that were circulated from management at the beginning of October 2009.

The two PDFs in question are the “FAQ – Insurance System in Japan” and the one titled “Social Insurance Letter” dated October 1st, 2009. In these PDFs, you tell your ALTs that they are not eligible for Shakai Hoken if they work less than 29.5 hours.

This is not true.

You also tell them that the only alternative is to sign up for Kokumin Kenko Hoken and that they may have to pay up to two years of back enrollment.

The problem is that, since they are eligible for Shakai Hoken, it is the company that will have to pay the back enrollment (up to two years) into Shakai Hoken, after which the employee can be billed for their half of enrollment fees.

Let me give you some background information on how I know this.

If you take a look at our page:

http://interacunion.org/2009/08/31/stop-illegal-dispatching-in-tokyokanto/

You will see that there is a Nihon Terebi news report from earlier this year. I was interviewed here about my time with Interac and your use of illegal contracts with the BoE where I worked in Osaka. I was also at the meeting of Union Leaders and Government officials that was mentioned at the start of the broadcast. Part of the reason we called the meeting with these officials is to force them to give clarification, on record, on various features of Japanese insurance and labor laws.

One of the things we asked them point blank:

A) Does Shakai Hoken enrollment require one to be working more than 29.5 hours a week?

The answer was no. The 3/4 of full time rule (if 40 hours a week is considered full time, then 30 hours a week is 3/4ths of that) is an internal administrative guideline that they use to determine who to crack down on (the same way that a police officer might not pull over some one for going 5 kph over the speed limit but will definitely pull someone over for going 10 kph over the speed limit). The 3/4 rule, or 29.5 hours a week rule, is not even in the Shakai Hoken law.

B) We asked them clarify what the minimum work requirement is for Shakai Hoken enrollment.

Their response was that, there is no minimum work requirement of hours per week. Additionally, they also stated that they would never turn down any company that wanted to enroll their employees no matter how much the employees were making (which means in effect that Interac can not use “government requirements” as an excuse for not enrolling their ALTs in Shakai Hoken).

The 29.5 hour mark per week is a misconception, and has nothing to do with eligibility. It never HAS had anything to do with eligibility. So says the Japanese government.

In reality, only sole proprietorships (個人事業) with less than five members can decide not to enroll their employees into Shakai Hoken.  The last time I was in an Interac office, I counted more than five employees, and your website claims that you are a 株式会社 (a kabushikigaisha or Limited Liability Corporation) so you are not a sole proprietorship. You have no excuse for not enrolling your ALTs, and with the new visa requirements, it looks like the Social Insurance office isn’t going to look the other way any longer.

Now, Interac has been around for over thirty-five years and they are rooted in every part of the country. I simply do not believe that every single manager, MC, and office worker, much less the owners of the business, are all too uniformly stupid to be ignorant of these facts. I have only been in Japan for for five years now, and I learned most of this three years ago. I can only assume that this leaves purposeful deception on the part of Interac to mislead it’s ALTs away from the insurance coverage that they have a legal right to (which would cost the company money) and drive them into a corporate partnership that they have with Interglobal/Global Health Insurance (I have heard it referred to as both names by Interac).

As evidence of such a deception, I would offer the “Health Insurance Disclaimer” that I was forced to sign upon the beginning of my employment with Interac. The disclaimer forces the ALT to agree that they “understand that it is my responsibility to finance my own personal health care requirements”, even though,  according to Japanese law, you are responsible for half of every ALT’s insurance. Are you still forcing your teachers to sign this disclaimer? I certainly hope so because it will make great evidence in the Social Insurance office or a court of law.

I do not make these accusations lightly, but I just do not see how a company with a nationwide presence can be so completely wrong on this issue. If you can offer any other reasons that Interac as a whole is so uninformed on this issue, then I am very interested in hearing them.

What this leads to is a situation where someone is going to have to back enroll into the system. If the ALTs back enroll into Kokumin Kenko Hoken, then they will have to pay the back enrollment fees (up to two years worth of monthly dues). If, however, the ALTs are back enrolled into Shakai Hoken, then Interac will pay the back enrollment fees (up to two years) and they can attempt to get half of the back-enrollment money back from their ALTs later (perhaps you could work with Interglobal to get a refund for your ALTs since they were supposed to be on Shakai Hoken from the beginning anyway).

I personally pledge to you and to every Interac ALT that wants help challenging your statements found in these aforementioned PDFs that I will help them to the best of my ability. Trade law prohibits unions from representing those who are not official members, but I will personally help organize the legal team necessary for litigation against you should you refuse to pay for the back enrollment that any of our members face.  I will encourage as many ALTs that I can to join their local union to force you into collective bargaining, and I will also encourage ALTs that are not interested in joining the union that they should apply for Shakai Hoken on their own. Anyone making an individual claim (a kakunin seikyu) will probably face a fimiliar pattern; they will be initially denied because of the internal 3/4 or 29.5 rule, but they will win their case on appeal as long as they have evidence of their employment (paystubs, bankbook records, contracts, recordings of conversations with management, etc).

I am also translating these PDFs that you sent out into Japanese in order to give it to the Social Insurance Agency; I think they may find it very interesting. Actually, if you happen to have a Japanese version already written that would really save me some time; feel free to send a copy to interacunion@gmail.com.

My advice to you is this:

1) Own up to your mistakes

2) Start back enrolling everyone into Shakai Hoken in order to avoid litigation from union members and non-union members alike.

Interac has saved a lot of money over the years by not enrolling people in Shakai Hoken, and has probably made money by steering people into Interglobal/Global Health. I think now it is time for you to put those savings to work by back enrolling your hard working ALTs into the system that they should have been in all along. Don’t try to force them to face back enrollment into Kokumin Kenko Hoken alone when they have a legal right to be enrolled on Shakai Hoken.

I look forward to your reponse.

In solidarity with our union brothers and sisters throughout the country,

Erich

Tokyo Nambu ALT Branch

Interac Union Nambu FWC

http://interacunion.org

interacunion@gmail.com

Tokyo Nambu FWC

http://nambufwc.org/

03-3434-0669

Social Insurance Agency

English: http://www.sia.go.jp/e/index.html

This leaves you with two options -
Be insured through your employer on shakai hoken/shigaku kyosai or enroll yourself on kokumin kenko hoken through your ward office.

The danger in enrolling in kokumin kenko hoken is that you may be hit with a back bill of up to 2 years for the health insurance and the pension.

Japanese law clearly states that all workers should be enrolled on shakai hoken/shigaku kyosai, and the General Union has been fighting for access for foreigners to the system since 2004. As a result we have seen Aeon enroll all teachers, ECC provide the option for all teachers to be enrolled, and an increased number of Berlitz & Nova teachers being enrolled. We have also been successful in negotiating for the enrollment of full-time & part-time high school teachers.

Cross posted from the General Union website.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20080105f1.html

THIS FOREIGN LAND
Assistant language teachers in trying times

By KANAKO TAKAHARA
Staff writer
Last of four parts

In November, Samantha Bouton, an assistant language teacher working at a public elementary school in the rural town of Shibayama, Chiba Prefecture, had a fever of 38.5 degrees and was diagnosed as suffering bronchitis.

Because of her illness, Bouton, a 25-year-old U.S. native from Oregon who has been teaching in Japan’s public schools since 2004, had to take leave for two weeks.

But her employer, Interac, a temp staff dispatch agency and leading provider of ALTs in Japan, told her she had already used up her seven days of annual paid leave — less than the 12 days she is entitled to under labor law — to cover the days she was sick.

“I went in every morning and the vice principal would take my temperature, cancel every class and send me home,” said Bouton, a contract worker at Interac, adding she had hoped that if she was sent home by the school, she would get sick leave. But her paycheck showed her salary was deducted for the days she took leave.

That and other poor working conditions for Interac employees was enough to convince Bouton and her husband, Greg Diamond, who also works for Interac as an ALT, that it is not worth working in Japan anymore. The couple plan to return to the United States in April.

“I have worked here from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. minimum. And after three years, I still don’t have social insurance, I haven’t gotten a bonus and I haven’t gotten a raise,” Diamond lamented.

ALTs are native English language teachers who offer assistance to Japanese teachers to help improve the oral communication skills of students in public and private elementary, junior high and high schools.

In the past, ALTs were recruited through the government-sponsored Japan Exchange and Teaching Program. But as the coffers of local governments began to dwindle in recent years, many switched from JET program ALTs to those cheaper private companies outsource.

According to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, the number of JET program ALTs dropped to 5,057 in fiscal 2006 from 5,676 in fiscal 2002, while non-JET ALTs doubled to 5,951 in fiscal 2006 from 3,090 in fiscal 2002.

Currently, English language is a compulsory subject in junior high schools, but demand for ALTs is expected to increase in the future because English will become mandatory for fifth-graders in elementary schools starting in 2011.

But the lower cost of company ALTs comes at the expense of the teachers’ low salaries and lack of benefits, including health insurance, unemployment insurance, pension and less paid leave.

“It makes Nova working conditions look like paradise,” said Louis Carlet, deputy secretary general at the National Union of General Workers Tokyo Nambu, referring to Nova Corp., the nation’s biggest language school before it went under in October.

Nova teachers who suddenly lost their jobs were left in limbo, with some unable to pay their rent or even able to afford daily necessities. But others found re-employment at G.education Co., which took over part of Nova’s business.

But G.education said in December it can only hire 200 more employees in addition to the 1,447 it has so far employed, a reversal of its earlier promise to hire all former teachers and Japanese staff at Nova.

Despite the difficulties Nova teachers went through, Carlet said Nova’s working conditions, when it was in business, were much better than those for private company ALTs. The pay of private ALTs is lower, they have contracts of less than a year and they don’t get paid during school vacation periods, he said.

Carlet blamed local boards of education, saying they simply want to avoid the responsibility of hiring foreigners by subcontracting the work to private companies. Under the system, the boards sign contracts with private firms that hire foreign teachers as ALTs.

“If they hire them directly, it means they have responsibility for their employment, and if something happens, they have to deal with it directly,” Carlet said. “What they want is to have all those problems, especially those hiring foreigners, pushed onto the private companies.”

Some boards of education choose private ALT dispatch agencies through a bidding process, forcing them to cut costs further, he said.

The fact that the ALTs are hired as contract workers instead of full-time employees also makes their position insecure.

Companies need to enroll part-time employees in the social insurance system if they work more than three-fourths of full-time employee working hours, or 30 hours a week.

But since the firms want to avoid shouldering additional benefit costs, they ask ALTs to work less than 30 hours or count the working hours by the number of lessons they teach instead of the number of hours they spend in the workplace.

Some ALTs who just want to work for a year or two in Japan prefer not being enrolled in the social insurance system to avoid paying insurance premiums and have higher take-home wages. But those seeking a longer stay tend to seek better benefits.

David Ashton, president of the Nambu Foreign Workers Caucus of the Tokyo Nambu Union, said ALTs’ limited Japanese language ability makes it hard for them to realize their rights or take action.

“If they get fired for some invalid reason, they go from one low-paid, poor-condition ALT job to another one,” Ashton said. “There are always more (teachers) ready to take the job because they just left another job.”

The working conditions of company ALTs are in sharp contrast with JET program teachers. The government-sponsored exchange program was launched in 1987 to boost relationships at the grassroots level amid fierce trade friction between Japan and the U.S.

The JET program offers generous working conditions to encourage foreigners to apply. They are given a monthly salary of ¥300,000, are covered by social insurance and given up to 20 days of paid holidays in addition to sick leave.

“The condition in Kamagaya is really, really good,” said James Chenery, 29, a JET program teacher in Kamagaya, Chiba Prefecture, who came from Northern Ireland to Japan three years ago.

Wages and benefits are not the only thing Chenery is talking about.

The overall working conditions have allowed him to become part of the local community. In his spare time, he teaches English at community centers and is given Japanese lessons by volunteers.

Because he only covers three schools in the district, he gets to know students better.

Private company ALTs, however, tend to be dispatched to dozens of schools, hopping from one school to another. This makes it hard for teachers to become attached to students they teach.

Asked what his plans are after the maximum five years as an ALT in the JET program are up, Chenery said he hopes his Japanese will have improved well enough by then for him to find another job here.

Meanwhile, local boards of education have started to realize they cannot get competent, experienced teachers either by subcontracting to private firms or through the JET program because many of them come to Japan just out of college without any background in education.

Taito Ward in Tokyo said it plans to stop outsourcing ALTs to private companies. It is considering advertising for candidates on its Web site and asking them to give a presentation on the kind of lessons they plan to offer as part of its screening process.

The city of Musashino on the outskirts of Tokyo plans to seek applicants among native English speakers who live in the area instead of subcontracting from private companies.

Ashton of the Nambu union said the best way to improve the quality of English teachers and subsequently the standards of English in Japanese schools is to stop outsourcing to private companies.

Ashton noted that the standard of English language education will not improve if the dispatching companies keep sending people who have just arrived in the country with no teaching experience.

“If (the government) wants to improve the quality of language in the public and private school system, the best thing is to hire qualified teachers, compensate them well, give them opportunities for training and give them job security so they’ll want to keep working here,” Ashton said.