 S
Shy Mule Academy
Doesn't provide all of
its teachers with health insurance - Shakai Hoken
Would YOU let it kick YOUR ass?
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in June ( or was it early July? ) SPRING had some fun with Simul
Academy over a perceived "copyright infringement" but strangely, it was
the NUGW that received a registered letter threatening legal action
unless a similar logo to that of the company was taken down by July 7.
SPRING has no official connection with the NUGW, but we removed the
logo after discussions with union leaders following the complaint by
Simul management and complied with their "request". It is interesting
indeed that Simul can spend time and energy employing lawyers at high
costs but that it doesn't have the funds to provide all of its
teachers with health insurance. As a result of the fun and games,
SPRING investigated other ESL "establishments" and discovered Shy Mule
Academy................
If you are thinking of looking for
work in
education in Japan, then there are quite a few things to consider, not
least of which are your rights as an employee and your status as an
immigrant worker. Browsing the free
magazines that are easily available here in Tokyo we came across this
ad for an ESL school ( No, really...). It struck us that the name was
not unlike that of another academy, a school operating in the same part
of town. Like the management of many ESL outfits, that of Shy Mule
didn't
like adverse publicity and was reluctant to engage in dialogue with the
labour union, indicating a certain....shyness.
After contacting
workers at Shy Mule to ask about their conditions of employment we were
surprised to find that the employees don't all
receive benefits that they are entitled to. It turns
out that Shy Mule was operating like many companies throughout
Japan - routinely
denying hardworking foreign employees things that all of us in decent
societies are entitled to.
With this in mind a
few weeks back a Springer went out to help English teachers employed by
Shy Mule Academy in
an ongoing dispute and the following is a brief account
and commentary by
our man Don Qui Jockey who was on the spot.
On an warm and balmy
Saturday afternoon here in Tokyo a dozen trade union activists from the
National
Union of General Workers Foreign Caucus (NUGW-FWC) descended on Shy
Mule
Academy's Shinjuku school to leaflet and picket in support of teachers
who are fighting for basic rights guaranteed under Japanese law to full
time workers. One of the teachers in question has been employed at the
school for one hundred and twenty years but still doesn't receive
subsidised health
insurance from Shy Mule - something known as Shakai Hoken in Japanese. Every person regardless of
nationality, over 20 years old, residing
in Japan is required to be enrolled in an approved Japanese government
Health Insurance Scheme and Pension fund.
Basically there are two systems, the first being the Employees` Health
Insurance and Pension (Shakai Hoken) for people
who are employed at a registered company or at a workplace with more
than 5 people if the workplace is not a registered company,and National Health
Insurance (kokumin kenko hoken) and National Pension (kokumin nenkin)
which is for the unemployed, self employed and retired. If you are not
enrolled in Employees’ Health and Pension Insurance (Shakai Hoken) you
are required to be enrolled in the national system.
Essentially Shakai Hoken consists of two parts - Employees’ Health
Insurance (kenko hoken) and the Employees’ Pension fund (kousei
nenkin). Shakai Hoken covers your health insurance, for example, 70% of medical costs are
covered and there is also a safety net so that medical costs don’t
exceed \80,100 a month. Further to this,
your pension is also covered whereby after paying in for twenty five
years workers are entitled to a full pension until their death, after
which surviving dependents receive payments.
This is what the NUGW-FWC members were asking Shy Mule Academy for, but
their requests have fallen on deaf ears, and now it has become a case
of demanding Shakai Hoken from the employer. Negotiaitions have gone
nowhere, with management and union representatives facing off against
one another in meetings where school managers have had cirlces run
around them logically and have retreated, stonewalling, requesting
further meetings in order to buy time, rather than addressing issues
concretely. Finally exasperated, the union has resorted to strike
action, with random classes being hit by members. In response, Shy Mule
has assigned scab labour to cover struck classes and has handed
out warnings to union members with the aim of intimidation and
preventing leafleting and picketing.
It was against this background that we entered the donkey's stable on
Saturday (although Donkey is perhaps somewhat a flattering description)
to face surly scabs on the umpteenth floor of the building who informed
myself and two other pickets that security had been called and that we
weren't to obstruct the entrance to the school. The pickets' reply was
polite and succinct in which they said that they would talk to security
and give them leaflets and carrots, hoping to win the sympathy of the
poorly paid
men and women charged with ejecting people without health insurance
from the building. When the school manager arrived and told us to
leave, we asked why, were told that school rules prohibited
leafletting and carroting. School rules? Oh, no, building rules! Don't
you mean stable rules? Show
us the documents! This all bought us time and while the manager and his
sidekicks went off to get the "rule book" we successfully leafleted
several students and staff, handing out free carrots and turnips while
scabs ducked and dived, looked at the
ground and one particularly well built, well dressed chap literally
scuttled along facing the wall and into the school.
When the manager returned, he commented that the article prohibiting
our
activity was in Japanese, and of course, we couldn't read Japanese,
could we? Well, one of us could. Oh....dear. Nowhere in the booklet did
it state that union activity was prohibited on the premises and so this
bought us more leafletting and carrotting time. Anyway, by this time
security had
turned up, all one of them - a big shire horse who looked like he could
kick down a barn door . After some shouting and a heated exchange in
which
the manager tried to warn one of the pickets - who wasn't on school
premises and who wasn't "at work" we retreated to the lobby on the
ground floor of the building to join other strategically placed
pickets.Shortly after we declared our action a success and moved off,
having talked to numerous students and successfully handed out most of
our leaflets, carrots and turnips.
As we wandered off down the road EE AAWWING, satisfied and content in
the knowledge that we had
handed out good quality organic fodder untainted by GMOs and dangerous
management rhetoric, one or two of us decided to pop into the local
watering hole for a drop of apple juice.
The dispute at Shy Mule is ongoing and we can only hope that the good
people at the NUGW win more members and force Shy Mule to do the
right thing. Force is the operative word here, as Mules are known to be
stubborn. In addition to carrots, it may require a big stick.
Don Qui Jockey (
Adapted from a story in a parallel universe ).
NB.The above is a
work of fiction and while it may bear a resemblance to another story on
this website Shy Mule
Academy is a work of the imagination and does not advertise in any of
the free
magazines in Tokyo. It doesn't have any employees. It doesn't exist
other than in a parallel universe where real stuff like that depicted
above may be going on. Unlike Shy Mule however, SPRING does exist but
is not
affliliated to the NUGW in any way as some might imagine.
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