In early July, Before the vaccine supplies issues occurred, we sent a letter to the six main Eikaiwas AEON, Berlitz, ECC, GABA, Nova and Shane recommending what they should do to safeguard their workers’ health and economic wellbeing during the vaccine process. We recommended getting the vaccine should be considered worktime (either paid or being vaccinated during work time) and paid time off for any side effects. This is similar to what companies such as Mitsubishi Electric Corp, Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance, Yahoo Japan, Soft Bank and Mercari Co already did back in May 

We received responses from all six companies. On the positive side, most were willing to provide some type of company based covid19 vaccine program to employees. Also when it came to getting the vaccine, most with the exception of Gaba and Shane, were willing to consider the time as work time although it unclear how they would calculate that time. Only Nova gave a set time of 88 minutes (but only gave a day’s notice to sign up).

There was one negative that was consistent across all six companies when it came to side effects; companies were unwilling to pay or provide any type of special leave specific to this problem.

We do commend the companies who did recognize the vaccine day as worktime, but their other responses show they still have a long way to go.

The list of recommendations can be found here.