Category: Action

  • Interac banned from Osaka prefectural projects

    Cross posted from the General Union. Let’s all work together for ALTs to be directly hired. ———————————————– Interac has been found guilty of unfair labour practices by the Osaka Prefectural Labour Commission in July 2010 for refusing to hold collective bargaining with the General Union (full story here). Osaka prefectural ordinances prevent companies found in…

  • Talks drag on, teachers fired in Berlitz case

    After 20 months of legal wrangling, neither side has managed to snag a win in Berlitz Japan‘s ¥110 million lawsuit against five teachers and their union, Begunto. On the recommendation of the case’s lead judge, the company and union have been in court-mediated reconciliation talks since December. The agreement to enter the talks came after…

  • Health Checks – They’re mandatory! Interac ordered to obey the law

    Cross-posted from the General Union in Osaka: 5 Jul 2010 Health Checks – They’re mandatory! Interac ordered to obey the law Industrial Health & Safety Act For many westerners, the idea of a state mandated health check smacks of a nanny state, and we are often reluctant to submit to the tests. While not all…

  • Tozen ALTs Sue For Unpaid Wages

    Yesterday, seven Zenkoku Ippan Tokyo General Union ALT branch members sued Japan Advanced Labor Agency head (and JALSS Representative Director) Muhammed Ali Muhammed Mustafa (AKA Max Ali) at Tokyo District Court for a combined amount of 1,943,760 yen in unpaid wages and transportation expenses contractually owed the members while they worked for Muhammed Ali Muhammed…

  • RCS ALTs Declared to Management

    Today, RCS members of the Tozen ALT Branch historically declared their union membership to RCS management and submitted a list of nine demands along with a call to the company to begin collective bargaining talks with Zenkoku Ippan Tokyo General Union on June 30, 2010 [rescheduled for July 16th, 2010 at company request]. The demands…

  • Foreigners rally over job security

    Hundreds of foreign and Japanese people staged a rally Sunday in Tokyo demanding better working conditions and employment benefits for foreign residents. At the annual “March in March” event at Hibiya Park in Chiyoda Ward, Louis Carlet, deputy general secretary of the National Union of General Workers Tokyo Nambu, said foreign workers have a great…

  • An open letter to Interac concerning health insurance

    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), 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…

  • Interac and Pregnancy: Getting Fired for Being Pregnant

    Last year when I was in the Osaka based General Union, we received an email from an Interac ALT who was rather upset because she had been fired for being pregnant. Martina (name changed) was set to have her contract renewed with her school where she was loved by her students and teachers. Her contract…

  • Liberation In Iwate

    In 2007, I recieved an email from an Interac employee that was interested in being directly hired by his BOE. He had tried in earnest to improve his working conditions through Interac, but they were uninterested in signing him up for Shakai Hoken, unemployment insurance, giving him a raise, etcetera. At the time I was…

  • New law: no dues, no visa

    On a drab, rainy Sunday in June, a group of foreign workers gathered at the office of the National Union of General Workers Tokyo Nambu in Shimbashi to discuss an equally drab topic: social insurance. According to a new immigration law passed by the Diet earlier this month, foreign residents will be required to show…