The union presented a list of 10 demands, 8 of which were positively answered, including – hours and conditions for 2008 have basically been guaranteed; no major changes are anticipated for 2009; the university will clarify its new pay scale – going from 6 to 3 ranks – and no instructor will lose out in the process, pay rises even possible; the colleges have agreed to give all part-time instructors access to the on-campus computers; part-time and full-time job vacancies will be advertised between the two colleges; in the case of school mandated class cancellations it may be possible to set students assignments when instructors can’t do make-up lessons, we also raised the possibility of them paying for cover teachers in this case. Two outstanding demands were over new hiring of teachers at a time existing teachers were given small koma cuts – they will get back to us over this once they have fully investigated. The other is our demand to remove the upper limit on koma (5 at Kodai, 6 at Setsunan). We will re-visit this issue in the future. Mukogawa Joshi Dai The union made three demands at negotiations on November 13; i. Establish a jizen kyogi sei (pre-consultation agreement) with the union, ii. Union members to receive no less koma than they currently have. ii. Stop receipt of illegally dispatched teachers and resume direct hire of all positions. As is normal with a first negotiation, the university refused our demands though they did hint at looking into protecting our members’ koma. As to dispatching, they claimed what they are doing is legal. This invited a very detailed explanation from the GU Chair proving to them that they are in the wrong. We will be re-submitting demands here again soon and expect to see some movement from the university towards meeting our demands. Kobe Shoin Joshi Daigaku This university will cease the use of dispatch teachers from April 2008 and only have directly hired instructors. from the December 2007 National Union Voice