Ultimately, this would have forced the sixteen teachers to have to work for a third-party just to keep the jobs that they had held for numerous years (with the added pitfall of having to succumb to the whims of the new company’s rules and regulations).

Suffice to say, the General Union did not want to see that happen. We got involved and, in an update to that story, we have some very good news to share…

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We’re happy to report that, on July 27th (2016), Osaka City University informed the General Union that it has decided to withdraw its proposal to outsource the jobs of those sixteen part-time English teachers at the university.

The official reason that Osaka City University gave to the union for the reversal was concern regarding the legality of service contracts (itaku) – information that been brought to their attention by the General Union during collective bargaining.

Once the information had been presented to them, Osaka City University were evidently wise enough to see that directly hiring (and remains) people is the best option everyone, and that dehumanizing teaching positions by treating them as a service is a problem, rather than a solution, to their faculty needs.

This marks a major victory for the General Union in its ongoing campaign for direct employment, and a blow against moves to outsource teaching to private companies.

However, this victory was only possible because the teachers at the university got organised and opposed the outsourcing to begin with.

The message here is that you need to get organised to get results.

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