Some Perspective and
Speculation
By A concerned citizen
As
one
of the part-time foreign teachers who has been seriously affected by
this action
by the Kanagawa Board of Education, I'd like to add some perspective and speculation on how some things may have occurred
leading up to and beyond the time when the outsourcing of 89 PFTs
throughout Kanagawa prefecture, took place.
In February, 2006 after all PFTs were given a letter
stating that they'd have no more direct hire positions after April,
2006 a handful of courageous part-time foreign
teachers who had formed a union, were in discussions with the KBoE,
trying to help
them resolve the issues which it stated as the causes for an upcoming
prefecture-wide
outsourcing. While those talks were still underway and collective
bargaining ongoing, PFTs
throughout Kanagawa's public high schools were given another letter by
their schools directing them to report to the
outsourcing company within 3 days for interviews, if they wanted to
continue working in a public high school. Outrageous?! Yes, it was. But
as foreign workers with a fragile status in Japan, it was also
extremely intimidating.
Many PFTs reluctantly attended those interviews, fearing they had no
other option. Many felt that it was the lesser of two evils, the other
being unemployment.
Meanwhile, in collective
bargaining, the unionized PFTs offered numerous ideas to help find
solutions to
the cited
problems and
showed their sincerity to bargain in good faith with the KBoE. Some of
the ideas were
to
assist in recruiting new teachers and help with setting up training
programs,
create a network to share ideas, and standardize curriculum. We
essentially
offered to help create a complete system based on their specific needs.
A proposal to offer a parallel system where the PFTs could work
mentoring the new teachers was also made, however, all of those offers
fell on dead ears and not long after, when faced with an approaching
contract expiration deadline, it became necessary for a formal
complaint to be filed with the Kanagawa Labor Committee accusing the
Kanagawa Board of Education of violation
of Japanese labor law.
In session after session, the KBoE was increasing
uncooperative in trying to come to a settlement and continually offered
just a single concession. That being to introduce the PFTs to the
outsourcing company. How generous of them!
The court case moved along slowly with the PFTs pointing
out multiple problems with the new system based on reports from inside
the schools and it
wasn't until a sudden turn appeared when the KBoE failed to voluntarily
furnish information requested
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regarding
dates that the principals were
told of
the future plans for
outsourcing, that a clear image may have emerged for the LC panelists.
The KBoE later admitted that they had discussed the plan in
October or November of 2005. That information finally came out only
after being pressed by the Labor
Committee to
furnish it. But why were they so reluctant to furnish that?
Might it have been because the KBoE didn’t want the
Labor Committee to know that their
strategy was to withhold the
information from the PFTs about the outsourcing as long as possible, spring it on
the PFTs as
late as
possible, and give the PFTs a mere 3-day window to report for
interviews with the
outsourcing company? That is what
actually occurred. If the principals had been told of the upcoming
outsourcing
five or six months prior to it taking effect, why then weren’t the PFTs
also
notified in a timely fashion? It certainly would have been the
considerate thing to do for its employees, to allow them time for
making a very important decision about a big system transition.
Well obviously, it doesn't take a rocket scientist
to put one and
one together and come up with the assumption that if the PFTs would
have had adequate time
to search
for new jobs as an alternative, the KBoE would have been faced with
massive
re-staffing problems which was logistically
improbable to accomplish in such a
short period
of time. That was a highly undesirable
outcome for the
KBoE and
therefore seemingly intolerable. Is it possible that a prime purpose
for
the KBoE’s action was to allow them to be the
conduit to the outsourcing company and act as
the outsourcing company’s recruiter? Did the KBoE intend to hand over
the
experienced PFT personnel already in their schools to the outsourcing
company
wrapped up neatly as a parcel?
It's easy to
imagine that the KBoE gambled that the majority would react
defensively
if given a very short amount of time and sign contracts with the
outsourcing
company to save their livelihoods, which unfortunately many uninformed
PFTs did.
As with
any large scale system restructuring, this
would have to have been discussed, coordinated and strategized well
among all parties, prior to implementation. One could easily assume
that such a strategy could successfully enable the KBoE to pass along
responsibility for those teachers
already in the schools to the outsourcing
company without having the company do much headhunting or training. The
prime
factor that the KBoE and the outsourcing company most certainly needed
to make
their
efforts succeed though, was ‘timing’.
To ensure that the majority of the
experienced
PFTs already in place at the high schools would sign with the new
outsourcing |
company,
it was imperative that the PFTs had little or no
time to
consider their options, begin communicating with one and another, and
organize into a union to defend themselves to contest the action by the
KBoE.
Let's
go backwards a bit for some
perspective of the situation as it appeared leading up to the filing of
the complaint. Repeated efforts were made in
January and February, 2006 by the union to contact PFTs at their
schools. Hundreds
of faxes were sent to all of the public high schools in Kanagawa,
dozens of
phone calls were made, and finally letters were sent to each school
addressed to
the PFTs, but few were received by the individuals to whom the letters
were
addressed.
In at least one reported case, an allied principal gave a
fax
message from a PFT
union representative to a PFT in a high school and the principal said
that he
was instructed not to deliver that message to the PFT.
Some PFT members
even
sent faxes to themselves from their homes to their schools to see if
they would have the union meeting information delivered to their desks
at school, but most of the faxes were never received along with the
majority of phone calls or letters. Mysterious? Not really; unlawful is
more like it. These actions denied us the
right to
contact PFTs and lawfully form a union.
Another
possibly coordinated effort to weaken the handful of unionized PFTs’
collective bargaining
position came in the form of principals
directing Japanese teachers who knew about what was happening, not
to discuss the issue with the general teacher population. We can attest
to
this fact having been told by a Teachers Union representative at a high
school that the representative and the other teachers in the English
department,
were directed by the principal NOT to tell any other teachers what was
going
on.
Was this just a single, isolated incident by a lone
principal deciding a course of action by
himself? Or perhaps, a principal doing as he was specifically directed
by the
KBoE so as not
to allow the PFT Union to gain support among the general teacher
population. The
obvious reason being that a united support network which included the
Teachers
Union or coordinated sympathy for the PFTs from the general teaching
population
might present a serious problem for the KBoE’s plan to deliver the
majority
of PFTs to the outsourcing company.
Isolate them!
Minimize their numbers! Crush that union!
A small
group of
foreigners being allowed to throw a wrench into a finely designed plan
of the BoE of one of the largest prefectures in Japan?!! That certainly
wouldn't
be tolerated, would it?
Well, apparently it would be, 'cause we're back!!!!
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