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Tokyo governor should retract anti-gay statement, activists say
The governor of Tokyo, Shintaro Ishihara, should retract his recent statements denigrating lesbians and gay men, Human Rights Watch said today. The governor of Tokyo, Shintaro Ishihara, should retract his recent statements denigrating lesbians and gay men, Human Rights Watch said today.
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Foreign employees in Japan up 15.5% to around 650,000 at end of Oct.
A total of 649,982 foreign workers were employed by 108,760 companies and other establishments in Japan as of the end of last October, up 15.5 percent and 14.1 percent, respectively, from a year earlier, the labor ministry said Monday. The total included 259,362 workers in the manufacturing sector, up 15.6 percent from the year before,…
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Ageing, insular Japan slowly discovers the benefits of immigration
It says much about Japan’s fortress-like approach to immigration that it made news when the country accepted 27 refugees from Burma late last year. They were first of a group of 90 Burmese that the UN High Commissioner for Refugees’ office persuaded Japan to accept as arguably a first baby step towards creating an humanitarian…
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Only 20% of English conversation teachers give classes in English
Only 20 percent of English oral communication teachers at Japanese public high schools were giving classes in English in 2010, far short of the “100 percent” target three years from now, a governmental survey showed Friday.
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ＡＬＴ：４月から派遣契約で チームティーチング可能に－－柏市教委 ／千葉
柏市立の小中学校で英語を教える外国語指導助手（ＡＬＴ）について、厚生労働省千葉労働局が違法な「偽装請負」と認定した問題を受け、柏市教委は新年度の４月から、日本人教師が外国人講師に直接指示しても法的な問題が起きないよう派遣契約と直接雇用に切り替える方針を決めた。
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Indonesian nurses to stay in Japan for extra shot at qualifying exam
The Japanese government plans to extend by a year the stays of Indonesian nurses and caregivers who came to Japan in 2008 under a bilateral accord, to give them an extra chance to take the yearly Japanese nursing qualification exam, sources close to the matter said Wednesday. The move comes on the back of low…
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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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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…