Our demands are part of the General Union’s PARiTY campaign – a push for equal rights for contract workers in language schools, public schools (elementary, junior high, and senior high), and universities.

The General Union’s demands include:

Unlimited Term Contracts
We are demanding that ministries take action against employers – especially universities – who are refusing to renew the contracts of contracted full- and non-full-time instructors at the end of five year of employment in direct and overt violation of the Labour Contract Law (vis-a-vis “the five year rule” for limited-to-unlimited term contract conversion).

Health And Pension Insurance
We are pressing for ministries to take action against employers who purposefully fracture their companies so as evade the “501 Employee Line” for mandatory enrolment of employees in health and pension insurance.

In the same capacity, we are calling for the government to order all employers to enrol employees who work more than 20 hours per week when it is demanded by a labor union.

An End To Illegal Subcontracting In Public Schools
As something that the General Union has long railed against, we are once again challenging the government to bring an end to illegal dispatch into the public school system and to force dispatch companies to follow dispatch law.

For the sake of schools and teachers alike, we will also assert that the government ensure that COST must not be the ONLY point judged when boards of education consider dispatch companies.

In addition, we are calling for the end to all disparities between dispatched- and directly-employed ALTs and a ban on dispatch companies being permitted to bid on contracts if they are found to be in violation of health and pension laws.

We believe that we can have substantial impact on government agencies through these negotiations.

While these dealings with the government may differ from company negotiations in terms of what “victory” means, we think our union having direct links to government agencies will reap benefits for all of our members and, in the long-term, non-members alike.