Osaka prefectural ordinances prevent companies found in violation of Trade Union Law from bidding on public projects. The General Union, along with allied unions from Osaka Union Network and Osaka Zenrokyo have submitted demands to the Governor of Osaka Prefecture, Toru Hashimoto, that Prefectural ordinances be enforced.

As a result, Osaka Prefecture has now informed all divisions of the prefectural government, including the Osaka Prefectural Board of Education, that they may no longer enter into contracts with Interac. Furthermore, Osaka Prefecture has summoned Interac to explain the situation, placing further pressure on the company to obey the Trade Union Law and negotiate.

The union’s victory at the Labour Commission and its subsequent economic impact on Interac will go along way in making sure that not only Interac, but other employers trying to evade their legal obligations, negotiate with the union in the future.

They told her that in light of her condition, it would be too much trouble for them to find a replacement in the middle of the school term, and had decided to go with someone else who was less…. pregnant.

Needless to say, this was quite upsetting. Everyone with a family knows that having a baby is expensive, and the money lost in this case was going to put a major dent in the savings of the mother to be. Combine this with the stress placed upon her by the entire insulting ordeal, and it is easy to draw the conclusion that Martina faced a risk to the health of herself and her child.

I was in the process of moving from Osaka to Tokyo, and was elected to take care of the case since I would be transferring my membership to the Tokyo FWC.  I was pleasantly surprised that I only had to send one email to rectify the situation:

Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2008 02:24:05 +0900 (JST)

From: “Erich”

Subject: Inquiry concerning Interac Employment

To: northan@interac.co.jp

Hello Joel Norton,

I have a question regarding Martina XXXXXXXX.
Who exactly was it that gave the order to not renew her
contract due to her pregnancy?

I ask this because as a union member, I study quite a bit
of labor law and this is horribly, blatantly illegal (not
to mention morally heinous).

The Tokyo (Nambu) branch of the Interac union will
probably be the branch that takes this case to the Labor
Bureau, but I thought I would ask who gave the order
specifically so that the union members will know who
specifically to name when bringing the case before the
bureau. I was thinking that we should just turn over your
name, but then I realized that you probably have a
supervisor that may have given you the order.

Thanks in advance for your expedient cooperation.
Erich

A declared member of the General Union Interac Branch
(you can call the Osaka Interac office to confirm my
membership in the General Union if you feel the need to do
so.)

PS – here is an excerpt of the law that has been broken here:

For the exact laws that say it is illegal to fire someone
for being pregnant you need this PDF, check pages starting

with page 18:

“Phase III” of the Japanese Equal Employment Opportunity Act

http://www.jil.go.jp/english/documents/JLR15_nakakubo.pdf

(EDITOR’S NOTE – This link is no longer active, so I have uploaded the PDF that was available here. – Erich: Pregnancy Law )

(1) Forced Retirement by Reason of Marriage, Pregnancy or
Childbirth, and Dismissal for Marriage
“Paragraph 1 of Article 9 prohibits employers from
stipulating “marriage, pregnancy or childbirth” as a reason for
retirement of female workers, and Paragraph 2 of the same
article states that employers shall not dismiss female
workers for marriage. These provisions were contained in
the former EEOA, although dismissal for marriage was
prohibited together with dismissals by reason of
pregnancy, childbirth or maternity leaves taken before and
after childbirth. These are dealt with separately in
Paragraph 3 of Article 9, as shown below. ”
“(3) Dismissal during Pregnancy or in the First Year after
Childbirth Moreover, Paragraph 4 of Article 9 was added as an
entirely new provision, which says that dismissal of
female workers who are pregnant or in the first year after
childbirth shall be “void.” At first glance this provision appears rather
drastic, but the following proviso states that this shall
not apply in the event that employers prove that the
dismissal is not for reasons prescribed in Paragraph 3 of
Article 9. Hence, this is in essence a change in the
burden of proof. Nonetheless, it will be of great
significance in the real workplace that the dismissal is
presumed to be void, since employers have to refrain from
dismissing female workers in the absence of a fully
persuasive reason for termination.

Article 9 (Prohibition, etc. of Disadvantageous Treatment
by Reason of Marriage, Pregnancy, Childbirth, etc.)
(1) Employers shall not stipulate marriage, pregnancy or
childbirth as a reason for retirement of women workers.
(2) Employers shall not dismiss women workers for
marriage.
(3) Employers shall not dismiss or give disadvantageous
treatment to women workers by reason of pregnancy,
childbirth, or for requesting absence from work as
prescribed in Article 65, paragraph 1, of the Labor
Standards Act (Act No. 49 of 1947), or having taken
absence from work as prescribed in the same Article,
paragraph 1 or 2, of the same act, or by other reasons
relating to pregnancy, childbirth as provided by Ordinance
of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.
(4) Dismissal of women workers who are pregnant or in the
first year after childbirth shall be void. However, this
shall not apply in the event that the employer proves that
the dismissal in question was not for reasons prescribed
in the preceding paragraph.”

Within a few days of receiving this email, they had called Martina into the office to negotiate. They gave her a settlement of double the amount she would have made had she worked until she had planned to quit. They weren’t exactly kind to her in their negotiations, but they did at least do what they should have in lieu of hiring her back if they had already hired her replacement.

It really is a shame that Interac had to be threatened with legal action to do the right thing, but at least they did the right thing in the end. I hate to imagine what would have happened had there been no union to question the decision making of the management.

I contacted Martina in March of this year, and she told me that she might be going to start working for Interac again this year. When I contacted her a few weeks ago to ask how she was doing… She told me this:

“Mr. Will Smith had promised to hire me back a few months before the start of the school year, but beginning of April I got a call from him telling me that they didn’t need me to teach at Interac. They had no explanation for it.”

Disappointing, but not surprising.
Seek help, learn your rights, and fight back the way that Martina did.
Don’t let yourself be a victim.

In solidarity,
Erich

This is his story, in his own words. Enjoy and be inspired. Any other ALTs in Iwate prefecture that want to liberate their BOE from their dispatch company can contact me and I will put you in contact with our friend, “The Abolitionist”.

In solidarity,
Erich

(NOTE: His experiences and his claims may not match yours exactly. Contracts can have different variables in different parts of the country. They can even be different in the same part of the country, but with different BOEs. If his experience does not match yours exactly, don’t forget to take the possible variations into account.)

*********************************************

From “The Abolitionist” in Iwate Prefecture:

It would be very sad for you, a great ALT, to resign to quitting your job and even leaving Japan, a country you love, because of Interac. Giving that much power to an amoral, impersonal business would indeed be a shame. That’s why I’m writing this. It’s not hopeless. A few years ago I was in this situation but my BOE cut out the middleman and gave me a direct contract. I would like to give you some tips on how to make this happen.

First of all, your BOE needs to know things. Like the conditions of your contract. Mine was the 29.5 hour kind. This means Interac escapes financial responsibility regarding your social security/health insurance. Also, they try to hock insurance not recognized by the Japanese government. This means that once you get a full-time job, you *may* have to make back payments on all the months/years you were in Japan under Interac, officially uninsured. From the BOE’s perspective, if you are injured, YOU MAY BE UNINSURED, because your insurance is unofficial insurance. This scared the hell out of my BOE. BOEs want security for their ALTs. It also helped that I showed them a youtube video about the welfare status of ALTs, which even referenced Interac (Editors note: Another more recent report is found here – Erich). News stories are a big help, as they show that your plight is important to the country. Let it be important to your city.

Also, let a trusted superior at the BOE know how much you make. This includes the 4 pro-rated months and the small amount you pay in taxes. You pay little in taxes, but get nothing (see insurance above). Also, make sure they know YOU GET NO BONUSES (Editors note: This does depend upon the contract, but in this Interac ALT’s case, he got none. – Erich). Japanese people often get bonuses equal to a few months’ pay, and they will assume you get the same. Give a copy of your pay to the BOE. This way they can calculate how much it will cost to hire you directly versus through a middleman. They will see the money they’re wasting, paying Interac 5,000,000 yen but leaving you with 2.8 million of it.

Let schools and the BOE know that you are only paid for in-class and meeting time. This is wrong for 3 reasons:

An example of how to better claim your working hours.

1) The contract says you must prepare for all classes, while refusing to pay you for preparation time. They are saying “you must work, but we will not pay you.” This doesn’t make sense, especially when you are already a part-time employee working full-time hours. I recommend that you write in “preparation” on the bottom of your RSOWS and write a P for every hour of prep. They cannot stop you. They would be asking you to lie. PREPARATION IS WORK. (Editors note: Better yet, since preparation is work, just circle in every hour of the day equally, so that they cant argue and separate your class hours from your prep hours. – Erich)

2) Your contract tells you to stay at work between class hours, while not counting them as work time. Again, you’re being held captive. If you tell them you want to leave the school, because this is actually your free time that you’re wasting, they will tell you that you cannot leave. And if you make them cave, they will tell you that you must call them first if you want to leave.

3) They try to force you to report your whereabouts when you’re on unpaid “break” or even on weekends if you want to go to a school event. Let your BOE know what you want to, but cannot do, because Interac is keeping you prisoner. For example, Interac must give you approval before you go to a school festival on weekends, even though you’re doing so on your own free time. This was actually in an addendum to my contract.

Not only that, they are MISLEADING THE BOE about the contract they have with you. This is why you must let the BOE know about your contract. If your Japanese level is high enough, and you have the ability to make sense of obtusely written documents, you can translate important parts of the contract.

Remember, your BOE/school is no friend of Interac. What they like about Interac is YOU. Because you are a good employee, you give the BOE (or school) a higher opinion of Interac. And every day you work without the BOE knowing the truth is another win for Interac (and a loss for you as an individual). Every good class you have is a good Interac class. You want to change that, right? All you need is to show the BOE that you are valuable, but are being treated like trash. If you don’t complain, no one will know. They will assume that everything’s going all right. Until I complained directly (because Interac wouldn’t do anything for me), the BOE knew nothing.

The BOE didn’t know about my part-time status (despite their contract using the words “full-time” in both BOE and ALT contracts), insurance fraud, pro-rated months, nor did they know about the 11.25 month contract, which may or may not be renewed. I told them that my employment was not guaranteed by Interac, regardless of how good I was, or what good things the BOE said about me. I may have been extreme, but I told them that my contract was so scary that I would quit this job the first chance I got because of my pay, insurance, and short-term contracts. Although extreme, it was true.

To put the icing on the cake, though, think about what Interac is doing for you now. They are forcing you to fax them useless forms every month, being pissy about your vacation, sending you lesson plans that your school originally made… basically, getting paid to get in your and the BOE’s way. To get around this, your BOE, like mine, can do a little bit of work. They gave me a short, 1-2 page contract that ALL city employees get. And check this out: whereas Interac was calling me “full-time” and giving me part-time benefits (=NO benefits), the BOE calls me “part-time” but has enrolled me for full-time (social security, government healthcare) benefits.

I was a 29.5-hour (Interac) employee working from 8:30 – 4:15, and now I’m a 30-hour (BOE) employee working from 9:00 – 3:45. Do the math and you’ll find that hilarious.

If Interac is your only problem, don’t quit your job just yet. Your BOE needs to know what’s going on. But they need to know well before the renewal. They may be able to make a direct contract with you if you give them good warning in advance. My BOE told me that they would give me a direct contract if I was willing to work for a few years, and would help them find the next ALT. A small price to pay.