The chair of the General Union travels to Tokyo on 15 December and together with our sister unions: Fukuoka General Union, NUGW, Tokyo Nambu, and Sapporo General Union, and representatives from National Union of General Workers, meets with the ministries of labour and education.

Our discussions will focus on the following:

• the ALT situation in Japan with our future goal of improving both working conditions and language education in the public school system
• unlimited term contracts and how employers are subverting the law by using contract renewal limits and universities applying the 10 year exception (should be five) outside of the limits in the law
• retirement age and the new employer duty to “begin planning” for future 70 year old retirement age.

We wish all the negotiators good luck and hope they come back with good news.