BEGUNTO - The Berlitz General Union Tokyo

Q.　　Is it ethical for management to unilaterally change the dress code when the change will most likely cause an increased financial burden on many employees?

A. No. Not when lesson counts have dropped substantially due to the global economic slowdown and employee income and benefits such as enrollment in the pension plan and shakai hoken are decreasing.

Q. Is it ethical to enforce a dress code written for another era?

Berlitz management pondered long and hard and discovered the cause of the economic slowdown: too much casual cotton, and not enough suits and ties!
Ignoring the trend in Japanese society toward cool biz and casual Fridays, Berlitz has decided to eliminate the traditional Saturday casual dress code, and hopes to attract more students by mandating suits and ties seven days a week. This, on top of taking health insurance and pension benefits away from teachers, is how the company is dealing with the economic crisis.

The Benesse Group Health Insurance Society removed a few more Berlitz teachers from the ranks of the insured this month.
With lesson numbers declining, Berlitz and parent company Benesse are passing the bulk of the pain onto teachers, who not only take a direct hit on income when lessons decrease, but can also lose health and pension benefits.

Begunto received a message of support and solidarity from teachers at Berlitz Germany, who voted on the following resolution at a meeting in March 2009 attended by representatives from 24 schools in Germany. Begunto extends its sincere thanks to our colleagues abroad for their support in our struggle to defend the rights of employees at Berlitz Japan.

(Text of Declaration of Solidarity)
“The Central Works Council (Gesamtbetriebsrat Deutschland) of the Berlitz School of Languages Germany, considering:

The Japan Times carried a follow-up article on the Berlitz strike in their Tuesday, April 28, edition, including comments from experts on labour law noting the lack of legal precedent for the Berlitz suit against the union.
Follow the link to read more:
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20090428zg.html

It's been more than four months since Berlitz sued seven union execs for
damages due to the alleged illegal strike, yet the company failed to meet
even the end-of-March deadline for submitting evidence.
Management is clearly buying time, hoping that the union will somehow
disappear in the meantime, leaving a clear field for cost-cutting practices like floating contracts and nudging people off shakai hoken and pension.
Here is your chance to show them we are not going away - take some time off on Monday, April 20, to attend the court and labour commission hearings below:

Those of us who are obliged to visit the lovely immigration office in Shinagawa on a regular basis (once every three years being way more than enough) will want to follow the progress of the latest reforms to immigration law.

The bill proposes replacing the current "gaijin card" with a Residency card, which will be issued by Immigration rather than by your local ward office.

Strict punishments for not carrying the card at all times, and for tardiness in reporting change of address/employer, etc. are also included.

Berlitz Withdraws Latest Threat.......Click here to continue

Download a high quality PDF version for printing here