Sub-teachers The union has been working to solve the problem of sub-teachers paying to call the company at their own expense. In response to our initial demands, the company is investigating introducing a toll free number for teachers to use. A step in the right direction. Health & Safety Fire safety is notoriously bad in Japan and the union took up the issue for the safety of ECC teachers. ECC has agreed with the union and have already started creating emergency evacuation maps for all schools. We have seen the template design and as of Friday maps have been finalized for 15 schools. These should be rolling out soon. Salary Increases It is the union’s belief that the current performance based system is inadequate and with this in mind, the union submitted a demand for an across the board increase of 100 yen per hour. ECC has refused outright. With the current economy we may have to decrease our demand of 100 yen and accept something lower. If we see no movement from the company we will have to decide how to proceed. At the last branch meetings we discussed asking for mediation with the Labor Commission over this issue. One thing to remember is that full-time staffs’ (sei-shain) salary increases are automatic and guaranteed each year. They are not tied to performance. Teachers deserve a similar guaranteed increase. Special Leave ECC is suggesting that unpaid special leave (bereavement leave etc) may be provided to full-time instructors. While this is a good step in the right direction, the majority of the school staff are entitled to paid special leave and the union believes that the same benefit should be offered to full-time instructors. We will be pressing the issue further. Evaluation System The union discussed some of the failures of the current evaluation system and even got comments from ECC Management that they wished they were sitting on the union’s side. The union will submit some proposals on ways to make the evaluation system fairer in the future. Next Negotiations Starting soon