Labour Bureau Rules On Kashiwa ALT Contracts

[Mulboyne]

The Mainichi has an interesting report (Japanese) on how the "ALT scam" is causing new problems for boards of education. Most foreigners are probably aware that one way schools reduced the cost of employing foreign assistant language teachers was to employ them from a staffing agency. This gave them a good deal of contract flexibility but greatly reduced the terms and conditions for the teachers by comparison with direct employment contracts. Increasingly, the Japanese media covered the negative impact this arrangement was having on the teachers and pupils. Unions pointed out that, in some cases, the contracts with teachers broke existing labour laws. The Fukuoka General Union has put together details of these problems, in English, here. Well, it seems that in Kashiwa City, Chiba. The Education Board has run into trouble. In short, if you employ someone as a temporary dispatch worker, not on a sub-contract basis, for more than three years, you have an obligation to make that position permanent. You can cancel the contract in time but you are not allowed to fill that position with another temporary employee for at least three months. The term has now started at 61 junior and middle schools and they will have no ALTs until July. The local labour bureau has ruled that the contracts were in fact dispatch arrangements and fall under that provision. Since the Board wants to avoid offering permanent jobs, they have no choice but to delay employing the teachers until they are in the clear. The Mainichi suggests that Kashiwa is unlikely to be alone in facing this issue.

[Behan]

...Since the Board wants to avoid offering permanent jobs, they have no choice but to delay employing the teachers until they are in the clear. The Mainichi suggests that Kashiwa is unlikely to be alone in facing this issue.

They should start euthanizing those unwanted ALTs. It's not like they are humans afterall.

[Kanchou]

Hey, that's incredibly offen....oh wait, no, I'm a CIR.

This seems like a good argument for BOEs to use JET again, instead of trying to cut costs by using private ALT providing companies, who regularly pay their employees sub-standard (compared to JET) salaries and have contracts/terms of employment that are less favorable.

[Mulboyne]

Here's the Mainichi's translation:

Chiba city's native speaker English classes canceled after ALT contracts found illegal

Public schools here have been unable to start their native speaker-taught English classes this school year after the city's board of education was accused of violating labor laws with foreign language teachers. According to the Kashiwa Municipal Board of Education, it has been instructed by the local labor office to change its labor relationship with foreign assistant language teachers (ALTs) in the city's elementary and junior high schools after it engaged in illegal employment practices.

The local education board entrusted part of its English curriculum for primary and secondary school students to a Tokyo-based staffing agency between 2007 and 2009, and a total of 23 foreign teachers belonging to the agency worked as ALTs at 61 local public elementary and junior high schools during this period. Their contracts expired at the end of last month. A local labor union supporting foreign language teachers complained to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry's Chiba labor office that the teachers were forced to work as temporary workers under the guise of subcontractors, while demanding the municipality extend their contract periods.

In response to the complaint, the labor office launched an investigation and confirmed that each school placed the foreign teachers under its direct supervision even though they worked under consigning contracts. The labor office then concluded that the education board forced the teachers to work as temporary workers under the guise of subcontractors, a practice that constitutes a violation of the Worker Dispatching Act. Under the current law, companies and other business operators must offer a direct contract to their temporary workers after they have completed the first three years of work. Moreover, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare's labor guidelines require a minimum three-month interval before the two parties enter into another temporary contract.

The city's board of education had planned to terminate its English class teacher outsourcing contract and employ temporary English teachers directly starting this April. However, as the labor office judged that the education board had already forced its contracted foreign teachers to work as normal temporary staff, it became impossible for the city to renew the contracts right away, in accordance with the ministry guidelines prohibiting consecutive temporary contracts of over three years. The local education board has announced that it will comply with the labor office's order and will resume relevant English classes after the three-month waiting period expirees in July.

In August last year, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology instructed local boards of education nationwide to switch consigning contracts for ALTs to either direct or temporary employment. A subsequent survey by the ministry has revealed that 670 municipalities still maintained their outsourcing arrangements for native English class teachers, of which 439 responded they were not planning to change their current practices.The ministry's International Education Division has requested each education board consult with their local labor office and make corrections as needed.

[Behan]

It's good to know the government is finally taking notice of the ALT plight but I doubt those ALTs will be paid until after July.

[Mulboyne]

Report here (Japanese) suggests the board is trying to come up with ways of controlling the ALTs without breaking labour laws. The board head says "ideal teamwork" - where teachers tell the ALTs what to do - would require direct employment contracts but they don't have the budget.

[Behan]

I have heard that a cause of this problem is that (some?) ALTs were actually working as haken workers but their employers were claiming they were gyomu-itaku.

Apparently, positions filled by haken employees are to become permanent after one to three years, but it seems that with gyomu-itaku, there is no such requirement.

One difference between haken and gyomu-itaku seems to be, for at least one dispatch company, that the ALTs of the the latter type cannot receive any directions directly from the schools, and, in fact, cannot even discuss their lesson content with the schools. All communication between the schools and the ALTs (or whatever they are now) has to be done through the dispatching (gyomu-itaku) company. Even if the teacher and ALT were sitting next to each other they would be breaking the rules if they were to chat about what they were going to do in an upcoming lessons.