Nova Update: Teachers Still Not Paid, Many Stop Working
If you’ve been following the news about the collapse of Japan’s largest chain of English conversation schools, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to you that Nova failed to keep its promise of paying teachers on October 19th (after failing to pay on the 15th). As a result, a large number of teachers and staff have simply stopped going to work. According to Let’s Japan, Nova’s office staff has sent out notices to all teachers that thank those who are still working and plead for other teachers to come back to work:
We totally understand your situation, but your decision not to work is making our company’s recovery worse. If we cannot provide lessons to students then we have to close branches. In this case, the company, that has not paid us, and those that don’t carry out their duty to work bear responsibility.
We can prosecute the company for the salary delay. If you chose to walk out on the job and not work it does more damage than good for the students and for your case against the company. Striking is a legal way to do this, rather than walking out. please try to stay calm, stand together and protest to get the public’s understanding and sympathy.
If you report to your home country’s Foreign Affairs Aministration, you can and solve this problem in a diplomatic way. The more of you that do this, the better because ther’s power in numbers.
Most teachers posting on forums and blogs have scoffed at such a request, seeing no reason to work for free in the wild hope that giving a few extra lessons would somehow save Nova from its horrible financial situation.
An article in the Asahi Shimbun on Nova’s future gives three possible outcomes of the current situation:
- Nova goes out of business
- Outside investors step in
- Drastic restructuring
Even if Nova doesn’t go out of business, it’s a given that school branches will continue to close across Japan, possibly leaving some staff and teachers without jobs.
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