NHK notices that foreign workers exist

[hodensaft]

The recent setback handed to NOVA by the high court apparently stirred up media interest in foreign workers in Japan, specifically in the English industry. My wife and I both work for one of the larger ALT dispatch firms, and agreed to be interviewed by NHK. A film crew spent about four hours at our house, and it all got compressed down to my wife explaining how much she loves our town (and me nodding). Gotta love television. Anyway, it was all part of a larger piece on the gyomu-itaku dispatch system, broadcast on Saturday, June 30th (at 7:30am). Here it is, in two parts (because YouTube is annoying like that).

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[yt]2Hp8G2KHMiw[/yt]

[dimwit]

NHK, at least it's sales staff has noticed us for years and even occasionally send some collectors around who can speak English. As far as their programming staff, I think they are to what all of us want to view....I assume...BTW are they still showing 'Little House on the Prairie'

[TennoChinko]

Do you and your wife pay NHK? If not, did the crew mind that you didn't have one of their gay stickers on your door? Or, did they even check at all?




I felt sorry for that poor Canuckian bastard with the kidney problem. If he had been on a proper Japanese health insurance program, he wouldn't have had to shell out over Y700,000 in direct medical costs. That must sting - especially coming from a country with universal healthcare (!) Ouch!

[hodensaft]

I haven't paid NHK in a couple years, actually. Haven't been going to great lengths to avoid them, it's just that no collectors have come calling since we moved into this apartment. I had wondered briefly if that would be a problem before the film crew showed up, but evidently the reporting and production staff don't consider it their job to deal with that sort of thing. It didn't even come up when they were here.

And yeah, there are a lot of hard-luck cases like that Canadian dude. Interac tries to steer people towards a private plan, with Global Health Insurance I think, that only reimburses medical expenses after the fact. I had a friend a couple years back who had surgery to remove a pilonidal cyst. He paid 100% of the cost up front, and then got the run-around for months afterwards while the company tried to deny his claim. When it was all over he still ended up being out over 200,000 yen.

[Iraira]

I haven't paid NHK in a couple years, actually. Haven't been going to great lengths to avoid them, it's just that no collectors have come calling since we moved into this apartment. I had wondered briefly if that would be a problem before the film crew showed up, but evidently the reporting and production staff don't consider it their job to deal with that sort of thing. It didn't even come up when they were here.

They only came by my old place once in 5 years. I pulled the "Nihongo wo tabenai" on them, and the guy went away looking like this .

[Behan]

Of companies that illegally refuse to enroll their FG employees in shakai hoken, would it be too bitter to say?:

I hope they burn in hell!

BTW, isn't Interac owned by FGs? If so, it isn't only chrysanthemums exploiting FGs. The FGs would be doing it as well.

[hodensaft]

No, to the best of my knowledge Interac is entirely Japanese-owned. I've met some of the higher-up VPs (and the chief of the Maxceed group, apparently), and they're all Japanese. The top guy at Interac is Seiichi Matsumoto (I think he's the Mormon one. One of the top guys is, which is where the Utah connection comes in, and why people sometime mistake the owners for FGs).

About shakai hoken, I've heard conflicting things about this, but I think with the right documentation (i.e. employment contracts, paystubs, timesheets, bank statements, health insurance receipts) you can just head down to the office and enroll yourself. I've only heard about this being done second and third-hand, but I think I'm going to give it a shot over the summer break. I'll keep you all posted.

[Behan]

Thanks hodensaft, I look forward to hearing more about it.

Actually, I am an Interac ALT, too, and at orientation they told us we had two insurance options, Kokumin Kenko Hoken or their insurance. After the same experience in eikaiwa, I just thought 'here we go again...'

[hodensaft]

Brendan, did you end up taking Kokumin Hoken? My wife and I have been on it together since 2004, and while the coverage is fine (we pay a straight 30% at the point of service, pretty much like everyone else), our annual insurance payments have gone up to around 400,000 yen. Last year when we were at our city hall updating some visa information, the guys in charge of health insurance took a look at our payment book and told us, "You look like you make too much to be only part-time. You should be on shakai hoken."

[TennoChinko]

Brendan, did you end up taking Kokumin Hoken? My wife and I have been on it together since 2004, and while the coverage is fine (we pay a straight 30% at the point of service, pretty much like everyone else), our annual insurance payments have gone up to around 400,000 yen. Last year when we were at our city hall updating some visa information, the guys in charge of health insurance took a look at our payment book and told us, "You look like you make too much to be only part-time. You should be on shakai hoken."

What did he mean? That is - I am not sure what 'shakai hoken' is .... were they saying you ought to also be paying for 'kokumin kenkin' (national pension) as well? If so, there is very little benefit for you even if you plan to be here for the next 30 years. You can get a one-time refund on your premiums after you leave the country but I think it's only partial in nature. While they might mislead or coerce you to go on the program - I do not think they can legally force you to do so. In any event, it pays to know your rights.



Anyways, a question I had was whether Interac has tried any retaliation against you or your wife for appearing in the documentary?

[hodensaft]

Shakai hoken is basically kokumin kenko hoken + kokumin kenkin, but employers are required to pay half the costs for full-time employees. Sorta like Social Security / Medicare payroll taxes in the states.

The total package does cost more than health insurance alone, but when employers follow the law and pay their share, I don't think the total cost to the individual is much different. The refunds are also pretty straightforward. When leaving Japan, you can get everything you've paid in over the previous three years back. Not so nice if you've been here for 12, granted, but it's enough to cover the average stay of college-educated westerners.

To answer your final question, they did call my wife in for a rather intimidating meeting at the branch office, but nothing more serious than a warning letter resulted.

[Hokuto-shinken]

Just wondering, do Interac have IT work or just teaching.

Thanks:heart:

[Doctor Stop]

The refunds are also pretty straightforward. When leaving Japan, you can get everything you've paid in over the previous three years back. Not so nice if you've been here for 12, granted, but it's enough to cover the average stay of college-educated westerners.

Japan has over the last few years signed pension agreements with several Western nations that go much further than the lump sum refund system that Hodensaft:bukkake: has described. You can now, or soon will be able to, receive credit for the amount you've paid into the Japanese pension system to your home country or vice versa.

Shakai Hoken beats Kokumin Hoken and Kokumin Nenkin hands down because it costs half as much and you get more benefits.

[hodensaft]

Just wondering, do Interac have IT work or just teaching.

Not sure what you mean by IT work. When I see those letters together things like building networks, maintaining servers, and backend database solutions come to mind. Interac doesn't have a whole lot of that.

Were you asking about corporate/business intructors? They've got a few of those, but not too many. From what I've heard they were fairly major players in that field 15 years or so ago, but their ALT business has pretty much eclipsed everything else by now.

[Behan]

hodensaft, I have been on kokumin for about 15 years. I asked to get on shakai hoken twice when I was at Nova.
The first time, about ten years ago, they were probably going to let me on but I backed out because I had heard you could never get out of it and I wasn't sure how long I would be staying here.
The second time I asked they turned me down because I had a reduced schedule, about 34 lessons a week when full-time was 40. This was before they began their smoke-and-mirror numbers game with lesson length and the intervals being considered non-work time.
34 is more than 75% of 40 so they should have let me on.
Later, in their numbers game, they reduced the mid-day 50 minute lessons to 45, and claimed that four minutes in the interval were work time. But the titled teachers(managers) were considered to be working, which would put regular teachers at or below 75% of a 'regular schedule' making them ineligible for shakai hoken.
At least that's what I think they were trying to do. Sorry if my explanation is unclear. Nova made me stupid. Just joking. Already was stupid.
I want to get in shakai hoken but I worry that our employer will be 'unable to find any open positions' for me when the contract time comes up.

[hodensaft]

Behan,

Interac is using a pretty similar smoke and mirrors game at the moment, so they can claim ALTs never work more than 29.5 hours a week. According to the company, we're only "working" when we're actually teaching during a class period. The half hour between the start of school and the start of first period, the ten minute intervals between classes, lunchtime, cleaning time, etc are apparently not "work". What hasn't changed is that I'm still at school every day from 7:55 - 4:50.

They've made a couple other transparent changes too. What was a "Full-Time Employment Contract" until 2006 is now just an "ALT Employment Contract." The plain obviousness of what they're doing just makes it all the more insulting, IMO.

[American Oyaji]

You know, I started working at NOVA in 1998. I was put on shakai hoken immediately. I also was married with 2 kids at the time too. The other married w/kids FG also was on it. I'm not sure about the other teachers. But I never heard them complain the whole time I was there.

It might be your school, or your region. I know that I had more than 40 hours. In fact, I routinely worked overtime because we were short staffed and needed instructors not only at our branch but in nearby towns as well. I had a lot of fun on those trips.

[Behan]

Hodensaftt, I got that impression about the work time, too.

When the IC(local manager I think?) took me to meet my new schools' principals, she kept repeating that I should be allowed to go to the bank or a post office if I had free time.

It was kind of weird that she kept bringing that up when there were so many other things to talk about. But then I realized it was Interac's way of claiming that we weren't working in non-class time.

Now, I have to be at the school from 8 to 4:45, and even with 45 minutes deducted for lunch, that still puts me at 40 hours a week.

Probably not unlike a lot of ALTs, I am asked to do cleaning, grade tests, make copies, go to meetings, and other tasks. Plus, I spend a lot of time preparing for lessons.

I like ALT work a lot more than eikaiwa but it seems Interac is being pretty underhanded, too.

I wasn't aware of it before, but it looks like these gyomu itaku companies are bringing down the quality of ALT work.

The more I think about it, the more it p*sses me off.

AO, in my whole(embarassingly long) time at Nova, I can only remember one person who was on shakai hoken and he had to ask to get on it. Where I was noone went on it unless they asked for it. At orientation, they only mentioned the existence of kokumin kenko hoken and JMA(apparently at least partially owned by Nova).
I think it's great you got on it.
Nova should have enrolled all the new workers on it without any discussion. It's not a matter of 'wanting to' or 'not wanting to' be on it.
But I do realize that a lot of foreigners don't want to enroll in it. I wouldn't have any problem with people being allowed to get out of it. My problem is that although we are supposed to be on it they won't even let us in. They are breaking the Japanese law to save money at the expense of their workers' health and pensions.

[American Oyaji]

Behan,
We were also a remote school. Only those that were hired outside the company went through orientation. This was in Aomori Prefecture. There was a school with 6 rooms in Hachinohe (my branch) and only 3 teachers of which I was the third. The branch had just opened. The Aomori branch had 4 rooms (I think theyve built a new one since I left) and held a fifth class in the VOICE room.
The Hirosaki branch was physically the largest, but it did not have rooms, it had tables in an open room which made for some interesting lessons. I think they had 5 or six. Hachinohe had the largest VOICE room though.
Since Aomori prefecture is so far away from everything else "interesting", they had a hard time keeping teachers there. Though with the bullet train built, thats probably a non factor now.

[Behan]

AO, I suppose that being so far away from other Nova branches it would be hard to find cover or transfers so they might have had some extra incentive to be nice to workers, too.
I worked with a couple of instructors with children and Nova didn't put them on shakai hoken.
I think the vast majority of teachers didn't understand what the two insurance schemes were. People who weren't on JMA or whatever followed it were on kokumin kenko hoken.
There was information about shakai hoken in folders in all the branches but no mention that we were legally supposed to be on it.