NIC or Lakeland College?

[MasterBates]

Anyone heard of NIC or their sister school, Lakeland College? Are they good place to teach?

[Taro Toporific]

Anyone heard of NIC or their sister school, Lakeland College? Are they good place to teach?

Dang I had to look them up:
Nevada-California International Consortium of universities & colleges (NIC), Shinjuku, Tokyo run "international satellite television classese", remote learning...

Looks fun
http://www.nicuc.ac.jp/student/album/album_001.html

[Hornegaijin]

Lakeland & NIC are slavedrivers. The schools have revolving doors. been there, done that.

[devicenull]

Network Interface Card?


no, i didnt read the thread, nor do i plan on doing so

[MasterBates]

http://nambu-nic-lcj-union.cocolog-nifty.com/blog/2005/08/about_us.html :P

[classygaijin]

NIC - Lakeland College is now hiring scabs to replace Union members. Union type people who won't be strike breakers please apply for the jobs and help us fight for teacher benefits guaranteed by Japanese law. Fax resumes to manager Steve Berghoff: 03-5379-5550 :P

[classygaijin]

& tell him you saw the ad in the Japan Times. :P

[classygaijin]

http://nambufwc.org/category/action/

[Taro Toporific]

http://nambufwc.org/category/action/

[SIZE="2"]Three strikes and you're out![/SIZE]
(Notice that"Strike One","Strike Two", and "Strike Three" are all big swings-n-misses with an empty webpages.)

January 20, 2006
NIC-Lakeland Strike Three

January 18, 2006
NIC-Lakeland Strike Two
January 16, 2006
NIC-Lakeland Strike Begins

[Taro Toporific]

Anyone heard of NIC or their sister school, Lakeland College? Are they good place to teach?

Watch the google video of a, " Protest at American college in Japan
1 min 58 sec - Apr 16, 2006 "


(It's a very mysterious video without context about what the "protest" is about. )

[hodensaft]

Yeah, the union doesn't have a whole lot in the way of editing equipment, and the video was pretty shakey. But I know some of those guys, and the backstory is essentially that the company axed all the union members at the beginning of the fiscal year. They told our people that their positions were being eliminated due to downsizing, but they're advertising open positions in the paper. They even had someone show up for a job interview when the office manager was in negotiation with the union. Classy operation.

[Sensei]

I have worked with the schools in question and know something of the situation. NIC and LCJ are very good places to work at, relative to most schools in Japan. The base salary for pre-academic teachers (all at NIC and some at LCJ) is higher than most schools offer, with no worse a schedule than the average school--and no children, now very common at a lot of schools. As the union themselves posted on their blog, the job asks for 23 hours of classes per week, 40 hours at the office total, sick leave, two months paid vacation, transportation paid, insurance plan available. As a complete package, it's much better than most jobs you'll find in Japan at present. The full-time academic positions at LCJ are extremely well-paid, though the adjunct (part-time) pay is average. The students are very highly motivated, which also adds to the quality of the job.

One of the reasons the strike began was similar to most teacher union origins I have witnessed in Japan: spite. At least one teacher doing part-time thought they'd go full-time, and it fell through--and they got angry and started agitating. A few other people with grievances chimed in, and then things spun out of control. Other teachers in the school were told things that were patently untrue, and the union started making grandiose and completely ludicrous demands. The school told them they would not get what they wanted, and strikes began.

Really, watch the Google video linked to above, you'll see what I'm talking about. The guy the union people are blocking and accosting is a friendly guy who works twice as hard as any of the teachers and gets paid less; he leaves his family on cross-country tours to recruit for the school, and is always helpful to the teachers and students. He also has a good sense of humor, which comes across near the end of the video. The foreign teacher whose voice dominates the video comes acrosss as a schm*ck, just spoiling for a fight, and sounding nonsensical. I mean, really, "a business or a college"? This guy has no clue.

Before I first came to work at this place, I did a similar thing to the guy who started this thread: I asked people on the web about the place. I was replied to by a guy who told me it was a horrible place, mistreated the teachers, and he even made the claim that the school forced students to all buy laptops through the school. I did an interview anyway, figuring it'd be a throwaway thing, a practice for other interviews. But I was offered a job, and when I saw the conditions, knowing what else was out there, I signed on. I figured that if it turned out to be a bad place, I'd just quit and go elsewhere. Instead, it turned out to be one of the best places I've ever worked at.

Does it have problems? Of course--have you ever worked at a place that doesn't? But the problems I've experienced are few and far between compared to ones I've had at other workplaces, in Japan and my home country. One of the union grievances is that the school retains the option to not rehire teachers at the end of successive one-year contracts. This is a strange grievance, considering that pretty much every school I've ever heard of in Japan has this policy. Even big universities have 2- or 3-years-and-you're-out revolving doors. And yet, at NIC and LCJ, there are teachers who have worked there for more than a decade. I've even seen teachers who were rabble-rousers keep on working for quite some time. But if the school retains the right to not rehire teachers who are getting poor evaluations from students, how is that unreasonable?

Another union demand is that the school more or less insures permanent employment for union members, and gives the union a veto on any decision by the school to discipline any teacher or not renew any teacher's contract. I see no reason why the school should comply--there is no law against a business deciding whose contract they pick up or do not pick up. Such a thing is not guaranteed by law, nor by contract, nor by common business practice in Japan. There are also demands that the school gives the union scrutiny over maybe every detail of every financial and management aspect of the school, claiming it is "related to law"--something which I somehow doubt.

But the salary demand by the union is absolutely absurd. They demand that "The company raise all union members base salaries to a uniform 500,000" yen a month and "raise the housing allowance of all union members to a uniform 90,000 yen." A total salary of 590,000 yen for doing a standard, 40-hour-a-week teaching job in Tokyo? If you work in Tokyo, then you know how completely bizarre such a request is. Most jobs that ask for as much work and even more offer pay around 250,000 yen a month. Already the pay is better than standard, and the teachers get 2 months paid vacation every year, as opposed to the 10 days most teachers in Japan get. Why not ask for a million yen a week and five months off?

The claim that the school "axed all the union members at the beginning of the fiscal year" is false. I don't know everyone who is in the union, but the ones I do know and are in the union and who have striked, they're still working as of last week. But like with most of the stuff I've read from this union and others I've seen at schools in Japan, claims like that are a dime a dozen. Just some angry, bitter people at the core who didn't get the sun and the moon, were able to drag some other people into it by telling wild stories, and now are trying to screw it up for everyone else.

So take whatever claims you hear with a huge grain of salt.

[LouisCarlet]

Sensei says: "So take whatever claims you hear with a huge grain of salt."

Indeed.

My name is Louis Carlet, deputy general secretary of the National Union of General Workers (Nambu) and also the case officer for our local at NIC-Lakeland. I would like to clear up some of the misunderstandings that Sensei and others have about the dispute, our demands and what has happened.

1) Working conditions -- true that NIC and Lakeland's working conditions are better than most eikaiwa. On the other hand, they require master's degrees even for the language teachers. Also, the company is making enormous profits.

2) Strike began out of spite: This is absurd, although in line with the propaganda management has been feeding gullible teachers not yet in the union. The strike began for the reason precisely stated on the strike notices -- to win open-ended employment. The strike is not to win other demands such as pay hike, etc., and the union has notified management that settling the job security issue would end the dispute. As soon as the union was formed, management began threatening employees with non-renewal, making open-ended employment the only way to keep the members at the workplace.


3) "the union started making grandiose and completely ludicrous demands."

I suppose grandiose and ludicrous is a matter of perspective. It is true that our labor union "aims high" in line with NIC's official motto. However, many of the demands were simply that NIC follow the law. This is despite the fact that a union's job is to improve conditions beyond the law.

4) "One of the union grievances is that the school retains the option to not rehire teachers at the end of successive one-year contracts. This is a strange grievance, considering that pretty much every school I've ever heard of in Japan has this policy."

Amazing that this teacher uses precisely the propaganda terms used by NIC, i.e. "rehire teachers," when in fact their contracts are "renewed" according to neutral perspective and "continue employment" according to unions'. Also the idea that because other schools have no job security for foreign teachers neither should NIC is the moral equivalent of saying during the 1950s that "lots of restaurants and bathrooms segregate whites and blacks so what's wrong with us doing it?"

The segregation is very clear at NIC, where a Japanese EAP teacher had the same conditions as foreigners except that he had unemployment insurance and shakai-hoken, both illegally denied to foreign teachers.

Our demand is for ongoing employment, enjoyed by nearly 70% of workers in Japan and most Japanese workers at NIC, Lakeland, including Mr. Nishii, the harassed and harried manager in the video. Ongoing employment would still enable the school to fire incompetent teachers as long as there is legitimate reason. The permatemp situation means no reason is required. Is the union demand so unreasonable?

5) "Another union demand is that the school more or less insures permanent employment for union members, and gives the union a veto on any decision by the school to discipline any teacher or not renew any teacher's contract. I see no reason why the school should comply--there is no law against a business deciding whose contract they pick up or do not pick up. Such a thing is not guaranteed by law, nor by contract, nor by common business practice in Japan."

Sensei apparently misunderstands what a labor union is. We exist not simply to make sure employers follow the law. Our purpose is to raise conditions above that. Demanding union approval for discipline is a standards union demand, although rarely met. Only NIC's lack of union experience and good faith prevent them from seeing this. The strike is not being executed because the union failed to win these ambitious demands -- it is solely for job security and now to reinstate our fired president. ("non-hired" according to management propaganda).

Sensei also complains about our ambitious salary demand. Again, our demands are not based on industry averages. Most of the industry is not unionized, so naturally our members have higher salaries at all workplaces -- because we fight for them.

6) The claim that the school "axed all the union members at the beginning of the fiscal year" is false. Although the previous thread claimed that, we have not claimed it. We have reliable information that NIC hoped to axe all striking members but knew they would lose in court and in the Tokyo Labor Relations Board. Even after firing the president and transferring another member, they are expected to lose at the board.
Fortunately for the union, NIC's lawyer is incompetent, careless and extremely emotion in his arguments. He even speculated in court documents that: "Nambu's biggest fear is that local members will find out that NIC is nice (sic) to them even without a union." His comment says more about management than about the union -- for instance, he apparently lives in a fantasy world of nice people and mean people and believes that there should be no unions if management is "nice." He also clumsily reveals the company's illegal anti-union bias.
In addition to illegal union busting, NIC also worked hard to crush a student union, which was formed spontaneously to support the striking teachers. Over 150 signatures were gathered on a petition and a joint communique was declared between students and teachers. NIC quickly began harassing the leaders, calling them dozens of times and even calling their parents, threatening them with not being able to study abroad, visa problems, even telling them they were "jeapordizing future employment prospects."
Many of the students backed down out of fear and after their parents freaked out. NIC operates purely out of fear -- most of the teachers and students I have spoken with (especially non-union) are terribly afraid of losing their job or expulsion.
That a school would threaten and harass young students and take away their freedom of speech and thought is pretty serious. This union will fight until all teachers have job security and students have freedom of speech.

Louis Carlet
Deputy General Secretary
National Union of General Workers (Nambu)

[ultrawoman]

It wouldn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that "sensei" is obviously one of the Gaijin "directors" that have been selling out the rest of the faculty at NIC/Lakeland for years now.

Can you say Danny? Steve? turncoat?

Hey why not look out for #1 and sell out the rest -- it's a dog eat dog world out there and you might as well get your secret bonuses while hanging the hardworking dedicated instructors out to dry.

For someone who has actually "done time" at one of these "shops", it's not hard to understand why a reasonable individual would think union is the only way to go for this type of "institution". What is more difficult to comprehend is why all instructors don't stand up for their rights and support their colleagues who are trying to make NIC/Lakland accountable for the way they do business and treat "non-Japanese" employees. My hat is off to those who had the guts to take a stance for demanding basic common rights at the workplace including an abolishment of racist, double-standard employment practises.

Unfortunately, there are still those cowardly individuals who are either too afraid to stand up for their rights or who are too busy asking how they can make a profit by selling out the others who have courageously taken a stance.

It seems the same old problems just keep cropping up at this place where instructors did used to get paid in the neighborhood of 500,000 per month until management just decided they would cut salaries because they could -- many long term instructors left. As others have mentioned, over the years, the "school" gets rid of instructors they don't like by not renewing their contracts and wishing they would just go away quietly. For all those who read sensei's comments above, just remember if you do decide you might want to try your luck at NIC, it is probably sensei himself who will be interviewing you for the job, so do take his words with a large, large grain of salt.

I wish the union best of luck in pursuing fair treatment for all instructors at NIC/Lakeland.

[Crossed]

Sensei said:

But the salary demand by the union is absolutely absurd. They demand that "The company raise all union members base salaries to a uniform 500,000" yen a month and "raise the housing allowance of all union members to a uniform 90,000 yen." A total salary of 590,000 yen for doing a standard, 40-hour-a-week teaching job in Tokyo? If you work in Tokyo, then you know how completely bizarre such a request is. Most jobs that ask for as much work and even more offer pay around 250,000 yen a month. Already the pay is better than standard, and the teachers get 2 months paid vacation every year, as opposed to the 10 days most teachers in Japan get. Why not ask for a million yen a week and five months off?

(Quotes and Italics mine)

Addressing the bold sentence: Would you say that the program at NIC is a standard program? 250,000 yen is really for a program in which the instructor is required to do little if any preparation or marking for a conversation-focussed programs. Such programs usually require little by way of marking or testing, and experience in teaching conversation based classes is a fairly ready commodity in Tokyo. You rarely need an advanced degree for a "standard" English teaching job.

Does NIC match this description of a "standard" teaching job in Japan? Does it require specialized skills that the other "standard" jobs do not? Does it require a higher degree than a "standard" teaching job does? If so, then your argument is not so strong.

Addressing the italized sentence: Straw man.

[Sensei]

Crossed: show me a job in Japan for teaching pre-academic English for people with M.A.s that pays 590,000, and I'll show you a job seeker! Show me the job, or show me that what this school is offering is not along standards for similar positions, and then you can claim the straw man. But not before. When I got here a few years ago, I looked around at Japanese universities, and didn't find much good. You got a Ph.D. and the creds, you can get a sweet position, if you're lucky. But an M.A. will get you a spot in their pre-academic programs, which don't pay much. I heard a spiel from Asia U., for example, full-time pre-ac, paying 250,000; that's far from unusual. If you know of better-than-NIC rates for M.A.-level pre-ac, do tell! The million-yen comparison is not a straw man, as it is not much more ludicrous than the 590,000 yen demand; you ask for ludicrous amounts, you might as well go all the way. And that was my point.

[Crossed]

Even a casual perusal of Ohayosensei.com shows that my description of a 250,000 yen/month job is pretty accurate. Would you say that NIC is that sort of school?

As for the 560,000 yen/month: Yes, I would say that that is a pretty high number, maybe even on the extreme far end of the range. However, it is not such an impossible number as you quoted, depending on the requirements of the school. I called "straw man" because you held your impossible number up as a focus for attacks (and look how effective it has been in that regard). But the fact, is that they demanded the extremely high amount, not the imaginary absurd amount that you claimed. So what was the school's counteroffer?

But again, the straw man serves as a focus for attacks, a false target to distract from less defensible positions. What about the other demands that the union made, and the claims of LouisCarlet? Were they unreasonable and why?


LouisCarlet said:

The strike began for the reason precisely stated on the strike notices -- to win open-ended employment. The strike is not to win other demands such as pay hike, etc., and the union has notified management that settling the job security issue would end the dispute. As soon as the union was formed, management began threatening employees with non-renewal, making open-ended employment the only way to keep the members at the workplace.

LouisCarlet: please define "open-ended employment".

[Sensei]

Look again in OhayoSensei for teaching positions that require an MA degree. They are in the general range of the school we're talking about. Looking over several issues, I found only one listing above, but almost all below the salary level in question. It is not hard to find schools that require an MA degree, often specifically in TEFL, that begin at 270,000/mo. or that area. Note the scarcity of any F/T teaching positions that start over 300,000, especially ones that don't require teaching small children.

As for 590,000 being the "extreme far end of the range," could you point out any ad in Ohayo Sensei, in any past issue, that offers that much for a position that requires only an M.A.? I've never seen one even close to that amount that didn't require a Ph.D. minimum.

As for opening to attacks, even if I did agree it was a straw man which I do not, I'm not really here to debate. I thought it was important to present the other side so that people looking for work and stumbled across this page would have a balanced view. I have no dog in this race. I approve of unions in general, they are necessary to protect workers in general, but in this case I simply disagree with their methods and expectations.

[Crossed]

Fair enough. You are correct that there are no salaries that high in ohayo-sensei. On the other hand, LouisCarlet says that the Union's goal is to go beyond the standard. Furthermore, as I have pointed out, even amoung the higher paying jobs, there is some lesson planning, but really not much more than that.

However, let's leave all of that to one side. It would seem that there are more points to consider than only pay.

It is good that you do not have a dog in the fight. And it is good to have a balanced debate on an interesting case like this.

According the LouisCarlet, the union was not striking over the pay demand anyway, but were instead striking for "continuing employement" (a term which I hope will be further explained in the legal sense). Furthermore, he said that,

We have reliable information that NIC hoped to axe all striking members but knew they would lose in court and in the Tokyo Labor Relations Board. Even after firing the president and transferring another member, they are expected to lose at the board.

Given the circumstance, wouldn't the union almost have to fight for its members' employment? Also, if I understand correctly, in Japan, it is illegal for a company to fire or alter the working conditions of an employee based on union membership and participation. How do you feel about the company's actions in this case?

[Sensei]

Good question. I've always wondered about that. Can a person be immune to being laid off simply by being in the union? Layoffs happen; proving it was or was not due to union membership can be very tricky. Then we get into what constitutes poor performance. There are student evaluations, but these are not perfect; popularity is not always an indicator of effective performance. The problem is, most other evaluation is subjective by the employer, and the union could always claim that the employer is falsely giving the teacher poor evaluations so they can justify a firing. I imagine it gets very messy, and we stray into the "you can't fire him because he's in the union" territory.

Of course, I would expect the union to fight for its members; but I have no idea what the justifications are for recent layoffs. As for the 'reliable information that NIC hoped to axe all striking members,' it seems unlikely that, if true, such an obviously impossible contingency would be widely enough voiced to conveniently fall into union hands, and it would be equally convenient that verification of such 'reliable information' is, naturally, impossible. Forgive me if I have doubts. As Mr. Carlet himself said, a huge grain of salt, indeed. Such claims are hardly rare in such disputes, as are claims that layoffs are punitive in nature. Here, the union has an advantage: the school, I believe, is prohibited from making public any private information about teacher evaluations in any one case, so the union can claim that it was union-busting and the school cannot say, "no, here are the teacher's evaluations," at least not to the other teachers--I am guessing they can do so in the LRB hearings. But publicly, we are only hearing one side of the story.

And the question does become one of quality control: the union claim seems to be that the company is not deciding layoffs depending on performance; on the other hand, I would expect the union would, in practice, work in the other direction, fighting any layoffs at all except the most egregious; as you point out, they "have to fight for its members' employment." It is possible that the company could abuse its power, but the company is probably more likely to decide based on performance; it's not like they don't care about the quality of service they provide. Quality control is important to a business, and so indirectly, it is important to employees as well in terms of maintaining jobs long-term. How do you find balance? This is an issue back in the U.S. as well, where many complain that it is near-impossible to fire a public school teacher.

We also have to keep in mind that there are sometimes as many negative effects of union protests as there are positive ones, and not as a result of the school "striking back," but because the school is forced to make more careful documentation and not make exceptions. I belonged to a school a few years back that had been through the union wringer, and as a result there were all sorts of bureaucratic changes. Evaluations were more frequent and detailed because the school had to have documentation in case a layoff was challenged, but this was greatly disliked by the teaching staff. Any application for time off or other request had strict deadlines and tons of forms to fill out. Special requests by teachers to take leaves of absence, advances on pay, or other flexibility on the part of the school were refused, because the school knew that if they made exceptions, that would require policy changes, open up charges of favoritism, etc. That made the school less flexible in meeting teacher's needs; if they knew they could not do a favor for every teacher who asked, they could not do a favor for any teacher who asked. And, of course, the teacher-administration relationship was poisoned and afterwards highly distrustful, on both sides. Most teachers preferred the pre-union school to the post-union school. And in that school, there was no more job security after the union than there was before; the demanded goal was, in the end, unattainable, so only negatives resulted from the action. The in-house union leaders eventually found other jobs, and the union collapsed; the supporters who had joined to help the leaders either had already left out of disapproval, or left when the leaders gave up the union; in the end, they regretted throwing in their support without looking ahead first.

As I've said, unions can be vital to worker's rights. The NOVA union and the drug-testing fiasco is an excellent example of that. But they can also make things worse. In this case, the goal is not universally seen as so vital (what %age of teachers are actually in the union?); the cost/gain ratio seems less than favorable.

I think that it is important for workers to very carefully review all the facts, and discuss the matter freely and openly with everyone--something which has not been done. I know several teachers who say they were not informed while the union was being formed, and have not been invited to meetings, so it appears that reachout was not universal; certainly, approval of what the union is doing is not universal.

[LouisCarlet]

The Japanese Constitution protects the right of all workers (except civil servants) to strike. Trade Union Law specifically forbids any retaliation by employers against strikers.

Nambu (National Union of General Workers) is confident we can prove in the Tokyo Labor Relations Board and Tokyo District Court that NIC is firing the branch president (Trevor) as well as two other members because they struck.

In Trevor's Case: The school has explicitly stated to the Tokyo Labor Relations Board that Trevor is a very good teacher and has no performance problems. Their reasons for non-renewal are: 1) "pushing students to form a union", 2) "suspicion of tax evasion," 3) "violating double employment prohibition," 4) "violation of immigration law," 5) "stealing property," 6) "background falsification," and 7) "breaking trust with employer." The union's lawyers and I are building a case to blow all these reasons out of the water. We also have evidence that the reason is his strikes.

1) We have several signed affidavits, including by the students themselves that Trevor had nothing to do with the formation of the students union.

2) Not only is Trevor innocent of "tax evasion," he is not even in tax arrears. NIC's "lawyer" apparently confuses tax evasion and tax arrears.

3) NIC has no double employment prohibition; it simply requires one ask for permission beforehand. Trevor worked his other job before working at NIC so he could not have asked beforehand. We have signed affidavits from several former and current teachers saying that Berghoff knew Trevor worked his other job as early as 2001, although NIC claims he didn't know. Further, double employment prohibitions, even when they exist in rules, are, in case law, invalid unless the other job is a competitor or prevents the worker from fulfilling his work duties.

4) NIC claims his other job is outside of his visa. Trevor quickly went to immigration to ask if he needed a special "shikaku-gai katsudoh-kyoka" permit. Immigration will answer him shortly. In any event, the permit requirement has nothing to do with NIC and NIC has no right to fire him over a suspected violation of a law involving a different employer. In fact, case law says you can't fire someone for "suspicion" of anything, even violent crime. This is in line with Japan's innocent-until-proven-guilty principle, a principle standards around the world at least in theory but not apparently at NIC.

Further, we have strong evidence (including multiple affidavits) that NIC violates not only immigration law but the criminal code by submitting fake employment contracts to immigration to make them think that semester-teachers really have one-year contracts. Since NIC knowingly does this, it is inconceivable that suspicion of immigration violation could be a reason for firing Trevor.

5) NIC has submitted no evidence that Trevor has stolen anything and Trevor denies it.

6) NIC says Trevor falsified his work background by omitting his other job. However, he wrote on his resume "related work," while his other job is completely unrelated. Further, he submitted his resume in October 1999, began the other job in December 1999 and started NIC in early 2000. Therefore he wasn't doing the job when he submitted the resume.

7) Breaking trust is a subjective position and is irrelevant to firing an employee.

NIC's cases in the other members' firing are even weaker, believe it or not.

We also have strong evidence that both John Charles and Steve Heverly committed perjury in their affidavits to the Labor Relations Board.

NIC has consistently rewarded non-strikers while punishing strikers, violating the teachers' constitutional rights. This is an issue that affects all of us in Japan. It is time that all employees at NIC stand up for all our rights and demand Trevor's job back immediately.

We are confident we can win his job back but with NIC appeals, etc., it will take several years before he can actually walk back in. UNLESS all teachers join the strike now. If that happens, NIC will not be able to hold out for long.

Many people mistakenly believe NIC teachers are striking just so they can create their own schedule, leave early, come late, etc. This is not the purpose of the strike: Although the strike demand was originally open-ended employment (abolishment of repeated renewals of fixed-term contracts), the strike demand now includes immediate reinstatement of Trevor. These are the real purposes of the strike; the convenience aspect is just an unintended byproduct of the right to withhold your work when you please. So don't join just because it will make your life easier -- join to win job security for all.

While John Charles's name has become a byword in the foreign labor movement for cowardice and treachery (by leaving just before the strike and testifying on management's behalf), Trevor put his neck out for all of us -- for all teachers and employees of NIC in particular. He paid the price by losing his job. This is not someone else's fight -- this is all our fight.

Trevor, Kate, Morag, Kristin and Jay have shown enormous courage and inspired hundreds of union members even in labor unions other than Nambu. They are true modern-day heroes conceding neither to fear nor apathy. We know they are not alone. Many teachers have offered strong words of encouragement and support; we look forward to them joining the strike in the near future.

We call on all teachers at NIC and Lakeland and all employees (Japanese and foreign) to do the right thing -- to overcome apathy, fear, self-interest -- and stand with the brave strikers that remain (contact Kate).

Make no mistake, if you do you may well lose your job -- but if we all stand together we will win -- win everyone's job back with all back pay, win ordinary job security enjoyed by most workers in Japan, and most importantly win a voice for teachers and staff at NIC.

Do the right thing...

Louis Carlet
Deputy General Secretary
NUGW Tokyo Nambu

[Iraira]

[BlogD]

OK, time for me to break in here. This goes too far. The above statement by "Iraira" is patently false, and has all the earmarks of someone either speaking from ignorance or intentionally attempting to slander the school--or both. I speak here from my personal experience and as a teacher, but not as an official representative of the school.

1. LCJ students are never "spirited off" to home campus. Around 30% decide to go there because of familiarity with the school and its culture and quality, the relatively effortless transfer, and because of scholarships offered based upon high GPAs received at LCJ. The majority, however, go to other colleges and universities, mostly in the U.S. (56 different colleges have accepted and continue to accept our students, and they do just fine there, thank you very much), and some to institutions of higher learning in other countries.

2. Our standards are high. Our academic courses are designed to be as nearly identical to those of the home campus as we can make them, down to instructor qualifications and the textbooks used in courses. We take pride in our standards, and maintain them well; so much so that we all too often have students returning from the U.S. telling us that courses were more demanding at LCJ than they were at campuses of other colleges in the U.S. Our students work hard and earn their achievements. If you think differently, then have the decency and the courage to step forth and say so to their faces instead of insulting them from the shadows.

3. LCJ's accreditation has never been in jeopardy. It was awarded soon after LCJ opened, and was renewed just a few years back, as we fully anticipate it will be awarded again the next time we come up for scheduled review, just like any college. We are under no more scrutiny or investigation than is any U.S. college or university; as with all other institutions of higher education, we constantly strive to strengthen the program and make certain we are doing the job right.

4. Anyone who says that LCJ students cannot converse or write cohesive essays upon graduation either knows nothing of our graduates, or does and is lying outright. Our students are highly motivated, and know full well that if they do not perform to expected standards, they will receive a failing grade, grades which the professors are never shy to issue if the students' performance merits.

5. The academic program of LCJ is and always has been run from the home campus, with standards and quality closely monitored and mirrored from the college in Wisconsin. The union claim of non-accredited control, like the one brashly forwarded by the union member off-camera in the video referenced earlier in the thread, is a completely baseless accusation.

In short, the message from "Iraira" is nothing but a rank falsehood, lobbed from the convenient shelter of anonymity. Are you even bold enough to state whether or not you speak for or from the union? It certainly fits in with the barrage of insults being issued toward the school, right down to the inflated wording, aimed at damaging the institution and its reputation, even as the claim that 'no harm is intended' is rather weakly put forth. Here we see someone bashing the school and bashing the students, apparently for the sake of malice alone.

Mr. Carlet, if that is one of your people, kindly remind them that your organization's image should be worth more than that.

Luis Poza

[Iraira]

Could someone at Lakeland College please go on the record, stating that the standards at LCJ are equivalent to that at any American institution of higher learning. Would someone go on record stating that ALL students graduating from LCJ, do so at a competency level equivalent to that of students receiving the same degree from an accredited college in the US?
Would someone put this in writing and provide this to the NCA? No one from LCJ or LCW seems to want to go on record and answer the questions stated above.

[BlogD]

You go on the record. You're the one making the bald accusations. State your name, your affiliation, and whatever evidence you undoubtedly do not have. But to hide in the shadows, make baseless accusations, and then demand that an institution obey your commands is laughable. Want to be taken seriously? Then act seriously. I posted here to set the record straight, not to satisfy your whims. If you want a public statement on the record by the school, then try asking the school publicly, not lurking around forums and throwing stinkbombs.

[Iraira]

shall not work.

Can someone in the LCJ administration state without any hesitation that:

1)The academic standards at LCJ are equivalent to that at any American institution of higher learning?

2)All students graduating from LCJ, do so at a competency level equivalent to that of students receiving the same degree from an accredited college in the US?

3)A student graduating from LCJ can perform at the same level in general education fields as a student graduating from an accredited college in the US?

Answering these questions is all that is necessary.
Are you under orders not to answer these questions?

[Taro Toporific]

Hey guys, sorry to butt in but I want to compliment you all in having a remarkably civil and rational debate. I've found ALL of the postings informative. You've taught me a lot about the issues.

The entire situation makes me wonder if there is some sort of giant curse on English education in Japan---ESL / ESOL / EFL / ELT just ain't that bad in the Real World (US/Canada//UK).

Although I am not a teacher, have been on the board of directors of an English school here* and I have found the Japanese directors' attitudes amusing---That is, the directors spent their spare time figuring out new ways to screw the teachers. It's their favorite hobby besides getting insanely drunk and soaped on company money.[floatr][/floatr]

*I have HS teaching certification, ESL/EFL master's certification, postgrad studies in applied linguistics and ESL consulting experience with US Bureau of Indian Affairs, hee, hee.

[Crossed]

Hey guys, sorry to butt in but I want to compliment you all in having a remarkably civil and rational debate. I've found ALL of the postings informative. You've taught me a lot about the issues.

_This_ is a civil and rational debate?!8O The other forums must be absolutely raving then.

The comments against LCJ don't really seem to pertain to this discussion, given that this seems to be focussed on working conditions for the teachers and unionization at NIC/Lakeland. Whether true or not, the level of competence of the students would not seem to speak on either of these issues.

For myself, I think it is pretty clear that I have a pro-union slant. I believe that unions work to prevent abuse of power on the part of the management and to improve the working conditions of union members. Do they go overboard sometimes? Certainly, but usually that seems to happen mostly in cases in which the management flat out refuses to negotiate, turning it into a hotly contested "us/them" situation. In situations like that, management often views any concilatory overtures as weakness.

Schools often get the idea that all the unions want to do is disrupt business and get more money. My experience is that usually, teachers worry most about their students, and absolutely hate the idea of disrupting school in any way. Industrial action is exhausting and expensive; if teachers pursue it, it is often because they have a genuine grievance.

[Crossed]

The entire situation makes me wonder if there is some sort of giant curse on English education in Japan---ESL / ESOL / EFL / ELT just ain't that bad in the Real World (US/Canada//UK).

It is not under a curse, unless you consider abysmal management to be a curse, or at least curseworthy.

Seriously, since the bubble burst, the quality of English education has dropped. It used to be that, even if the teachers qualifications were less than stellar, the respect that a teacher autmatically got in Japanese society garnered them enough respect to work with the class successfully. These days, NOVA and similar schools have reduced teachers to the level of factory workers, with little respect and no influence in the class. As a result, the staning of english teachers spiraled down lower and lower, and with them the working conditions. These days ESL in Japan is more for backpackers and transients than for long-term gaijin. It's a loser's game, and the schools are getting what they pay for.

Lately, one of the big management ideas is to hire people from dispatch agencies on short term contracts. Such people have little or no loyalty to the school or their students because they know that they are going to be moved along soon, and, in any case, they are just working to make some cahs for a year.

[Greji]

Seriously, since the bubble burst, the quality of English education has dropped. It used to be that, even if the teachers qualifications were less than stellar, the respect that a teacher autmatically got in Japanese society garnered them enough respect to work with the class successfully. These days, NOVA and similar schools have reduced teachers to the level of factory workers, with little respect and no influence in the class. As a result, the staning of english teachers spiraled down lower and lower, and with them the working conditions. These days ESL in Japan is more for backpackers and transients than for long-term gaijin. It's a loser's game, and the schools are getting what they pay for.

I don't know how long you have been in Japan, but this has always been the case. There have been a lot of less than desirable individuals used in the English teaching business. Some whose English was their second or third language and were barely fluent in it. The bubble brought a brief respite in that there was enough money for schools and companies to attract higher qualified individuals. The burst of the bubble brought the curve back to normal, or SNAFU, if you will.

Lately, one of the big management ideas is to hire people from dispatch agencies on short term contracts. Such people have little or no loyalty to the school or their students because they know that they are going to be moved along soon, and, in any case, they are just working to make some cahs for a year.

I assume you are talking about using Hakkengaisha's. This is not limited to English schools or teaching. A high percentage of kaisha's are now using these to obtain part time and semi-full time employees as a cost reducing factor for fringe benefits among other reasons. The main advantage is that the hakkengaisha is contracted for filling that position(s) and if the employee walks out unannounced or just plain disappears, which is certainly not an unknown happening among eikaiwa teachers, the hakkengaish is responsible for getting a replacement in place asap. This gives employers a bit more security in handling their staff. The hakkengaish employees are usually not that much different than a lot of those hired off the street. They are just looking for the cash. But the empoyers have a chance to keep staff with regular hakkens gauranteed.

Having said that, I have to add that there are a lot of well-meaning and dedicated teachers also. But, filling a lot of the hourly positions that don't provide enough total income for a dog to live on, cannot be filled with the cream of the crop. So employers have to make do with what they can get to stay in business. After all, the purpose of busness, no matter how undispicabe some people might find it, is to make a profit.
Just my two yen worth.