On 30 March, seven General Union members visited Interac’s Osaka headquarters in Honmachi to hand out union literature to a group of 20 new Interac teachers who were there to receive their UNPAID training.

Knowing that teachers had their lunch break from 12:00 to 1:00 the assembled members were in time to make sure we could talk to everyone present. Twelve o’clock passed and nothing stirred, not even a mouse. Then 12:05, 12:10, and finally at 12:15 one teacher was sent down to check what we were doing; we could already see the assembly of Interac managers watching us from the balcony.

Was Interac holding the teachers hostage for their own safety against the evil General Union? Finally at 12:25 the teachers came down stairs to buy drinks, but no lunch. The teachers received our information warmly and told us that Interac decided to make it Pizza Day for the trainees. Our understanding is that this is not normal Interac policy. We suspect that Interac, having somehow found out about our leafletting action, decided to wreck our chance to talk to the teachers. But whatever the reason, Interac didn’t stop us from talking to the teachers because they bought the pizza but didn’t realize that they would also need to drink something. So great, the teachers got free pizza and union information and were very interested to hear that we are demanding that they be hired directly by the BoEs they are to be sent to, with full wages and social insurance.

If Interac didn’t buy the pizza to stave off our activity, they may have bought the teachers pizza in lieu of wages for the unpaid training. If this is the case, the average teacher would have had to eat:

3 days of training @ 6.5 hours per day = 19.5 hours

19.5 hours @ 712YEN per hour (minimum wage) = 13,884YEN

Standard Medium Pizza Hut Deluxe Pizza = 1,890YEN

13,844YEN ÷ 1,890YEN = 7.34 pizzas

Whatever the reason for the new Interac Pizza Day, we hope the teachers were allowed to take a portion of their 7.34 pizzas home.