Strike! Union Bungles It Big Time?

Is that a picture of a Chinese workers strike or something?

To be honest, this might sound kind of harsh to some, I don’t feel bad for those working with NOVA. Yes, NOVA is screwing all of you over big time, but what did you expect? Did you not research the company before you applied to work there? Did you not realize from the get go that NOVA is popularly considered one of the worst eikaiwa out there? I would never apply to work with NOVA based on information provided by former students, not even teachers, but students. A lot of people would not be having these problems right now if they had thought more about their options and avoided the hulking, eikaiwa market saturating beast known as NOVA. In my mind that is just common sense rather than 20/20 vision in hindsight.

All “the union”, there actually are two unions involved, has to do is fax Nova strike notices a few minutes before the strike begins for everything to be legal.

One of the unions, the General Union, has even made membership free under certain conditions, so you can’t claim that the strike has been just set up to increase dues paying membership lists.

Can you provide a citation for the two thirds majority claim?

Do a little more research before you write.

David,

What on earth are you talking about? So your suggestion is to keep on working for free? That’s absolutely stupid. You are trying to argue “points of law” while the ship is sinking.

To say that a strike would victimize Nova is also silly. You haven’t been paying attention to what’s been going on the past few months, have you? This mess is entirely of Nova’s making. Nova is not the victim here, it’s students and employees are.

I am Definately not on Nova’s side and I am most Definately not in favor of working without pay.

Having made that clear, I am just asking if the call for a strike has been thought through clearly and unemotionally. It will certainly give a bunch of frustrated teachers and employees of Nova an opportunity to vent their frustrations publically. If this is the goal of it, fine, have a strike.

I also can very easily understand the desire of people to want a quick end to this whole affair so they can get on with their lives and pick up the pieces. I am very aware of the events (albeit not first hand) of the events that have been transpiring these last few months, evictions, school, closings, suspicious stock deals, missing top executives, sanctions, etc., the works.

I just want to point out that things could have a way of not working out as planned and hoped for. Suppose the NHK evening news tonight features the demonstration and activities planned for today. Wouldn’t they most like to get a statement from the management? Up till now Nova management has declined to comment much of anything, but suppose they change their minds and Saruhashi gets on TV to tell everyone how sorry he is for all this trouble, the fact that teachers are outside his office at this very moment demanding their pay, his resignation, the downfall of his company just plays the victim card that is so well dealt here in this country.

Images of red faced angry gaijin shouting and carrying placards outside Nova headquarters and poor Mr. embattled, abused Sa-chan cowering for his own safety appealing for calm and pity to save him from the barbarians was the nightmare I had last evening thinking about this strike.

Not to mention that in the wash, if their is one coming, a strike, legal or not, will most certaily play well for either side according to how things work out. The Nova management is surely not that naive to not be thinking about ways to take advantage of the frustrations and emotions that are running high at this time. Emotionally reacting by having a strike might feel good for the moment, but it can also have the opposite effect of it’s intent.

The item I keep looking for, and missing, and tonight am too lazy to do the research on is:

According to law, these workers without their jobs will only be qualified to receive 60% of their remaining salary rather than what is stated according to their contract.

I hope someone will spend some time on this matter.

I believe the first thing Nova should do is attempt to relocate the workers to schools that still operate. If some workers are given this option, perhaps they can retain a shot at 100% of their due salary even if it is only through a civil court or arbitration via the Labour office.

But for those where the business has closed, and they are not being given an alternative, I am fairly confident their only claim is 60% of their salary plus entitlement through the Hello Work offices.

The union is obviously not in control nor has authority with many of these workers that are not out of a job.

And it is going to become very interesting that the Labour offices do not have any authority when it comes to unemployment insurance.

Is the union making any Good Neighbor Sam decisions to inform these non-union workers of their rights that are now facing a six month statute of limitations when it comes to claiming unemployment insurance?

In my opinion, it is time to tear down the eikaiwa industry in Japan and start over. Those who want to stick it out, those who need to stick it out should remain and get the control enforced.

The unions do not support their entire membership.

Labour needs continual prodding from non-flinchers to perform their duties efficiently.

And when is the last time a company informed it’s employees the gist of the Labour Standards Laws?

Guess what, folks? The government is continuing it’s attempt to do away with employment contracts as the nation understands them and hopes to have it done by this time, next year. Quite earlier, to tell the truth.

It’s going to get louder. The amazing thing is that very few here have a clue just how loud it can and should get.

The Labour Inspections Office needs to get on the ball and start demanding the companies to make the labour laws known to the workers. It’s the law. It is this one law that is not getting the most respect.

The unions don’t like talking about it.

Labour does not like talking about it.

And the companies don’t seem to have any idea they are required by law to talk about it.

The number escapes me. My law book is in the car on this evening. But look for Article 106 or Article 109.

Oh, Jesus. If I hadn’t gotten emails about what has been written here, I would have given this article the bypass. Monkeybridge, it is apparent, from the foolishness you are writing, that you know absolutely nothing about my case, and it is a fact that you either weren’t there to witness what was going on with me and the union OR you are a union person attempting to slander me. Either way, I find it low class.

This is going to be as short as possible, so YEAH, I may leave some things out. I joined the union in 2003, in part because I was being harassed, but MOSTLY because I wanted to do something to help out, not just sit in the teachers’ room and moan about what was happening. I had volunteered pretty frequently—eventually the president told me that the Secretary General was uncooperative and wasn’t performing his duties. This was completely false, as I found out the real story from the Secretary General and two other members. I was unofficially made the interm Secretary General of the union. It was illegal, as there was no vote—I didn’t know that.

Around March or May, I went to Peter Logan to file an official complaint against my AAM as well as to request a contract recognizing my status as a permanent employee. I got the idea that I was a permanent employee from Jon, who knows his stuff about labor law. He acknowledged employment was continuous, but refused to give me the contract reflecting this fact and found that my AAM acted appropriately. We all know, this is total BS. After that, I noticed that I was being delayed for or not being scheduled for contract evaluations and I got no explanation why. It was that summer that I told the union I felt I was not going to get renewed, and I even made JOKES that I should try to get myself fired.

I had spoken with the Secretary General who introduced me to Robert Bisom. After talking with them, I felt there was something not right about the whole situation with the union, but I just couldn’t put my finger on it. I was confident that the union would protect me (is that not what they are supposed to do?). Well, I get a letter from Nova essentially telling me that I am a terrible teacher and they have all of this evidence proving I was terrible—essentially they wanted me to admit to something I didn’t do and I knew this would be held over my head if I wrote an essential confession. I will give the union this: they did show me how to write an appropriate response to them. (They also told me that Nova had no legal right to kick me out of my apartment, but heck, it didn’t do much good until my LAWYER told them to back off.) Well, that made them angry because they told me that my contract would not be renewed. The union did have a chat with Nova and Nova said they would offer me a private apartment and a new contract in Machida—on the condition that I write and sign a confession letter. Carlet told me that I should take it because court cases take a long time and I would have to work under the table to support myself. I did not take the contract because I KNEW it would come back to bite me in the behind. If I had signed that contract then, I would have essentially been considered a new employee, not an employee with continued employment and I would have lost all of my rights along with it. Now, Robert Bisom told me a few days before hand about provisional labor insurance. If I filed a lawsuit, I would immediately entitled to unemployment insurance PLUS I could file a labor injunction. In the eight months I was a member with the union, not once did ANY of them mention this—because they didn’t KNOW about it (and if any of them try to sit up there and lie that they did, I swear I’ll blow a gasket). I saw the bigger picture—it was more than simply getting a job back—had I signed that letter, I would have only delayed an unfair dismissal. I saw this as incompetence and I was afraid that if I allowed the union to do anything else, I would lose everything and I couldn’t take that risk—I had 40,000 yen to my name. But I did NOT quit the union at that time. This was like September or October. Carlet then had the nerve to send me a nasty email at the end of November essentially threatening to destroy my case by telling me “someone” may tell Nova that I planned to get fired. Carlet can deny it all he wants, but I still have the email as does my lawyer. They also told me that I should keep showing up to work. My lawyer was baffled by the advice and essentially told me that I had nothing to prove and trying to show up to work would be a waste of time. It was Nova that needed to prove they had a good reason to dismiss me. Carlet even told me that I shouldn’t ask for my payment in lieu because it would mean that I accepted the dismissal—again—BOGUS advice, according to Robert Bisom, his lawyers and my lawyers. I showed up to a meeting in November where I was still considered a member. I told the members my story and I said that the best thing to do would be to start filing separate lawsuits in conjunction with protests. I told them about provisional unemployment insurance (they even photocopied a document I wrote about the procedure) as well as labor injunctions. Well, my ideas were poo-pooed, but oddly enough, guess who decided to use my ideas after I was run out of the union? Tench even stated that if any of them wanted their own lawyer, it would have to be approved by certain union officials. This is ILLEGAL. If this is the union’s idea of fighting for job security, then I am grateful I didn’t listen to their advice.

Side note: I find it ODD that the union never acknowledged that they lost three cases and dilly dallied on appeals until it was too late. I also find it ODD that one of these people came to me and told me that he should have listened to me in the first place. You really ought to be more responsible and OWN it.

And YES. I was run out. I wanted to help, I still have emails stating that I still wanted to be involved, but because I took my case elsewhere, I was treated like chopped liver. Tench, who I considered a friend, never even called up to ask how I was doing after I had made my decision to get myself a lawyer. Carlet himself even told me I should “go start my own union” and that the Nambu president wanted to take my membership away—this is in the SAME email as where he threatened me. Does that sound like I quit? My lawyers were a little wary about fully committing to my case at first because I was still officially a union member. When I told my lawyers all that had happened with the union, they were LAUGHING. Yes, LAUGHING. One of them said, “I—I don’t understand. I thought a union was supposed to help people.” Once they understood the situation, they were more than happy to help me (I guess they were initially afraid of stepping on the union’s toes because they know how REAL UNIONS work and figured that my case was easy-enough for them to handle).

The judges (all three of them) found in my favor. Winning my labor injunction proved that I was deserving of continued/permanent employment and the company had no business firing me—I already knew this, as the LSO told me point blank that there had to be a reason for dismissal and stating my contract ended doesn’t count. Everything that I had been doing was right in line with what would be expected of a normal employee. It was also helpful that I happened to have two judges who understood the eikaiwa situation.

Let’s not forget that at the end of the day, I had a choice of going back to work at my old school with my old schedule AND my old employment status OR accepting a tidy settlement. That’s what I wanted from the beginning, but the union wanted to quit on ME before that could happen. They wanted an immediate victory without thinking about the consequences.

Again, I have all the emails, judgments and documents to back up everything I am saying. If this were a trial, I could even produce witnesses who will back this up. Monkeybridge, before you come step to me, you’d better put out the proof to the contrary of anything I have said—and I suggest you not rely on the union for all of your information. Between 2002-2004 I had done a lot of research on this issue—online research, multiple visits to the LSO, union information, speaking to lawyers, speaking to individuals who were suing their companies, etc. I have never been able to trust just one source 100%.

BTW, it astounds me, monkeybridge, that you have not adequately answered Belinda’s questions. I guess it’s more convenient for you to offer the same, tired standby attacks rather than to come up with a real answer. You also dismiss Jon’s answer as being wrong without providing any proof. Well, my case is PROOF of what he is saying. It is also PROOF that you don’t NEED a contract in order to work. At least, that is what the official at the Kanagawa LSO told me (he even showed me the law). You claim that I am “mostly wrong” yet you haven’t given one example of where I have been wrong on any of the message boards where I post. You’re going to have to do a lot better than that. If what I am saying is wrong, then the judges in my case are wrong, the LSO is wrong, my lawyers are wrong, Robert Bisom and his lawyers are wrong and all the union and Japanese law websites are wrong. But this is no surprise to me at all—if it’s not union-sanctioned advice, then it’s obviously completely wrong. LOL

And some of you people wonder why so many have such little faith in some foreign unions in Japan. I just hope that in the wake of what’s happening with Nova now, they are able to get their ish together.