According to its GaijinPot profile, it employs between “51-100” people.

Being the “successful chain” that James English School considers itself to be, one has to wonder: are the teachers who work there reaping the benefits of that prosperity, or are they the ones who are paying the price for it?

Let’s have a look at the employment contract to see what we can find…

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OF COURSE, THERE’S NO SHAKAI HOKEN

The first black mark we find in the contract is the infamous “29.5 Hour Rule” that dispatch companies and English conversation schools alike use to deny their employees their right to be enrolled in Employees’ Health and Pension Insurance (社会保険 – shakai hoken).

It’s a little suspicious that the working week just happens to be fifteen minutes short of thirty hours, isn’t it?

As we often mention, companies use the fictitious “shakai hoken threshold” of a ” 3/4 of a 40 hour week (based upon a Japan Pension Service internal memo from the 1980s) to illegally avoid enrolling their employees in the shakai hoken system (and, more importantly, to pocket around ¥30,000 per month per employee).

(Further reading: “Berlitz Teacher Wins Court Case Against Japan Pension Service” / “A Short History Of The 29.5 Hour Rule“)

This one happens to be “29.75” instead of “29.5”, but the outcome is the same: by keeping the hours just under thirty hours, James English School is able remain in that “sweet spot” of being able to break the law while simultaneously avoid invoking the wrath of the Japan Pension Service.

Suffice to say, the inclusion of such a clause (and the denial of shakai hoken enrolment) is always a big concern.

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AMBIGUOUS WORKING HOURS

The hours begin “between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m.”… but when do they end?

The contract later states that working hours outside of 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. will be considered overtime hours, but that doesn’t answer the question of how long a person can expect to work, per day.

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EXCESSIVE DUTIES

James English School may tout a “29 hours and 45 minutes” working week, but the number of duties that the contract cites that a teacher must do seems rather excessive. In this case, it could be that these duties seem more involved on paper than they actually are in real life, however.

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UNPAID WORKING TIME?

There’s also this clause:

According to a post on Facebook (in Japanese), the “English Lounge” is a set period of time in which people can come into the school and freely converse with whichever employees happen to be assigned to the “English Lounge” at that time.

What’s concerning is that, as the contract states that this time is “not considered teaching hours”, this appears to be twenty hours (per month) of unpaid work.

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TEACHERS MUST PARTICIPATE IN UNPAID WORK EVENTS

Teachers must – MUST – participate in the school Christmas party. However, it won’t be “counted as working hours”, and “will therefore be unpaid”.

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FINAL SALARY “GARNISHMENTS”

The ambiguous wording of this clause is concerning because it essentially grants James English School the power to deduct money from a final salary for whatever unspecific reasons they deem justified under the broad scope of “obligations” (whatever those may be).

The problem that arises from this that there is a fine line between an “outstanding fee” and a “contract termination penalty”, the latter of which is a crime under Article 16 of the Labor Standards Act.

While the contract does not explicitly state a fixed amount, these nebulous “garnishments” that an employee may be subject to for “fail[ing] to meet obligations” sounds like an less-than-subtle threat that penalties may be applied depending on the whims of the employer.

Perhaps that isn’t the case, but the wording remains ominous.

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NO TEFL = NON-RENEWAL

While James English School may claim that this TEFL requirement is to maintain a cultivated business image, the clause seems to exist mostly as an excuse for James English School to non-renew people.

If a TEFL requirement was so important, surely this would be a requisite FOR employment, not something to be attained AFTER employment.

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YOU KNOW, “LIE” AND “LAW” ALMOST SOUND THE SAME…

No matter how good a contract seems, and no matter how many benefits and perks they might seemingly give to an employer, all it takes is one big lie to cast suspicion upon everything else that is written.

This is an egregious lie.

There are no immigration laws that state that a person must leave Japan within thirty days of ending their employment with a company.

Once you leave a company, you have 14 days to inform your local immigration bureau that you have left your job, and around 90 days in which to find a new job before the Immigration Bureau MAY begin the process of revoking your right to stay in the country.

The inclusion of the lie seems to be there just to scare people into not terminating their contracts early (and not working for rival companies).

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PAID HOLIDAYS

For a new employee, the Labor Standards Act stipulates that ten paid holidays must be given to an employee no later than six months after the starting date of their employment.

In addition, the Labor Standards Act states:

However, in conflict with those laws…

There is no legal requirement that an employee must give advance notice of paid holiday use to an employer – you have the right to use a paid holiday whenever you like. In some cases two weeks might be appropriate but at other times even a few days notice should be fine.

Finally, James English School states that an employee cannot take a day off “either before or after” a holiday period, and “will not be allowed” to take a paid holiday “in the last month of employment”.

This is nonsense. An employer does not have the right to dictate when you can and cannot take a paid holiday (which are given to you by law, not by an employer), and does not have the right to refuse to allow you to take a paid holiday (except under extreme circumstances).

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TERMINATION ALLOWANCE

Offering someone ¥100,000 to leave the country (so that they won’t go and work for a competitor) is deplorable. In addition, it’s unlikely that a court would uphold such a condition.

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OTHER WORK IS PROHIBITED

Illegal.

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Taking these illegal clauses and points of concern into consideration, is James English School a bad place to work at?

Ultimately, that’s a question that only the people who have worked there can actually answer, but there are certainly a number reasons that could lead to someone to become at odds with management and/or the company in regards to some of these employment conditions.

We’re waiting…

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