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Keidanren urges spring raises
The Japan Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren) has endorsed a committee report recommending that employers grant regular pay raises to employees at this spring’s wage talks in view of improving corporate earnings. The upcoming negotiations between labor and management will focus on the maintenance of regular wage hikes, according to the report by Keidanren’s Committee on…
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Labor office recognizes overwork death of foreign intern for 1st time
A labor office in Ibaraki Prefecture has found that a Chinese trainee at a local firm died in 2008 due to overwork, marking the first recognized death from overwork of a foreign intern under a government-authorized training program. The male trainee, Jiang Xiaodong, died of cardiac arrest aged 31 in June 2008 after working more…
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Bank Organizing Seminar
Build a union at your bank to boost your negotiating position and improve your working conditions! Zenkoku Ippan Tokyo General Union will hold a workshop on Sunday afternoon, January 23, 2011 to explain step-by-step how to build a labor union in Japan, how to conduct collective bargaining with management and how to work toward improving…
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Contract Renewal Seminar
Do you know your rights when it comes to contract renewal? Zenkoku Ippan Tokyo General Union will hold a seminar/panel discussion on Sunday afternoon, January 23, 2011. We will discuss the issue of contract renewal/non-renewal and your rights when your employment contract terminates. We will also explode several myths related to the fixed-term employment such…
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GESS Who Just Got Sued?
Last Friday at the Tokyo Labor Commission, Zenkoku Ippan Tokyo General Union sued executive search firm GESS International for Unfair Labor Practices under the Labor Union Act (Act No. 174 of June 1, 1949) for repeatedly refusing collective bargaining with the union. (Unfair Labor Practices) Article 7. The employer shall not commit the acts listed…
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Keidanren OKs regular wage hikes in ‘shunto’ talks
The Japan Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren) has no plans this year to pressure employers to stop making regular pay hikes during this spring’s labor-management wage talks because business conditions have improved in recent months, a final draft of the federation’s negotiating policy report showed Thursday. “Most companies hold wage talks with the focus on maintaining…
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Japan Keeps a High Wall for Foreign Labor
Maria Fransiska, a young, hard-working nurse from Indonesia, is just the kind of worker Japan would seem to need to replenish its aging work force. But Ms. Fransiska, 26, is having to fight to stay. To extend her three-year stint at a hospital outside Tokyo, she must pass a standardized nursing exam administered in Japanese,…
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Trade pacts one thing, immigrant labor another
Japan, despite a decade of government, business, academic and media warnings that the aging population and lower birthrate mean millions of foreign workers are needed to maintain current GDP levels, has dithered, opting instead to emphasize the goal of wooing highly skilled migrant workers. In July, Jusuf Anwar, Indonesian ambassador to Japan, told a public…
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Immigrants are equal citizens, not guests
There is no quick or easy way out, but Europe — and Japan — should start by making economic migration legitimate Baruch Spinoza, the 17th-century Dutch philosopher, Benjamin Disraeli, the 19th-century British prime minister, and Nicolas Sarkozy, the 21st-century French president, have one thing in common: all are sons of immigrants. People have migrated to…
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Concern over use of Japanese language in English conversation classes at high schools
Less than 20 percent of public high schools have been enforcing an English-only rule in their English conversation classes during the 2010 school year according to a survey, causing alarm at the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). Oral communication (OC) classes were introduced for English studies at high schools in 1994…