Let's Japan.org Debunking Eikaiwa and Ramblings in Japan

It doesn't look like the lawsuit will end any time soon:

The current focus of negotiations is the amount of notice union members should give the company ahead of industrial action. Initially, Berlitz Japan offered to drop their lawsuit if teachers gave a week's notice before striking. Begunto proposed five minutes. Since teachers typically only learn the next day's schedule the night before, the judge instructed the company to come up with a better offer.

Asked how much notice unions legally have to give before striking, Langley replied, "None. Zero. That's one of the beauties of a strike: You just strike."

In the latest round of talks held Thursday, Berlitz Japan requested contract teachers give strike notification by 3 p.m. the day before, and per-lesson teachers by 5 p.m. Begunto pointed out to the judge that per-lesson teachers don't receive their schedule until 6 p.m. the day before. Union executives have taken the offer back to members for consideration

That's quite the chutzpah from Berlitz. I don't know why they want advance notice of industrial reaction when it hasn't stopped them from screwing over their teachers:

One, who didn't want to be named, received word of his dismissal just before shipping out to Afghanistan as a U.S. Army reservist at the end of July 2009. Berlitz Japan had allowed the teacher to take unpaid leave for military duty several times before the strike. But after being the only teacher at his Yokohama branch to walk out, he began getting complaints from students.

According to Begunto members, after being ordered to deploy to Afghanistan, Berlitz Japan told the teacher he could take a leave of absence of less than a year, and that he'd have to quit if he needed more than a year. Two days before he left for Afghanistan the company fired him. According to the dismissal letter, his performance was subpar and was hurting the company's image.

Take unpaid leave and then get summarily fired anyway for reasons which you cannot defend since you are conveniently unable to communicate with the company. The same thing applies if you become seriously ill:

Another of the teachers named in the suit, Catherine Campbell, was fired earlier this month after taking too long to recover from late-stage breast cancer cancer [sic]. In June 2009, Campbell took a year of unpaid leave to undergo chemotherapy and radiation treatment. Because Berlitz Japan failed to enroll Campbell in the shakai hoken health insurance scheme, she was unable to receive the two-thirds wage coverage it provides and had to live with her parents in Canada during treatment. The company denied Campbell's request to extend her leave from June to Sept. 2010 and fired her for failing to return to work.

Berlitz Japan work rules allow for leave-of-absence extensions where the company deems it necessary.

Never mind that this is unpaid leave, it's Catherine's fault for not healing faster. Her situation is also a good example of why it's important to pay into a health insurance scheme. She would not have been financially crippled had she been enrolled in the company's shakai hoken health insurance plan. Insurance is always a waste of money until you need it, eh?

As the article points out, the heart of the dispute is a battle for a wage increase. The teachers went on strike for a 4.6% increase after going without a raise for 16 years while Berlitz and its parent company, Benesse, enjoyed record profits.

One of the reasons why conditions are so bad in eikaiwa is because the schools have been allowed to get away with their shady practices and abuse for so long. Part of it has to do with the lack of regulation of the industry, but another reason is that few teachers have chosen to stand up to their employers. It's always been easier to jump ship and find something better. But with Japan's moribund economy, those days are over. There are few good options left for teachers: 1) Don't teach English in Japan (don't bother with it in the first place) or 2) Don't be a pushover in the first place.

As I've said before, this is worth fighting for. You can't let yourself be pushed around. The alternative is to let eikaiwa schools forever stomp on you.

In other news, Louis Carlet is the executive president of Zenkoku Ippan (Tozen):

On Dec. 3, 2008, Berlitz Japan claimed the strike was illegal and sued for a total of ¥110 million in damages. Named in the suit were the five teachers volunteering as Begunto executives, as well as two union officials: the president of the National Union of General Workers Tokyo Nambu, Yujiro Hiraga , and Carlet, former NUGW case officer for Begunto and currently executive president of Zenkoku Ippan Tokyo General Union (Tozen).

Hoofin' has the details on how that happened.

UPDATE: The author of the article, James McCrostie, was kind enough to email me and offer a few extra morsels that didn't make the editor's cut:

• To add insult to Catherine Campbell's fight with cancer, Benesse supports the Pink Ribbon campaign through their health insurance union （ベネッセ健康保険組合） [PDF, see p.3].

• Union members told James McCrostie in an interview that the fight against Begunto really seems to be part of a wider policy of union busting at Benesse Corp. In April, Simul International fired the president of their union, someone with 12 years experience at the company. Also, Berlitz threw away 15 years of established practices for collective bargaining in English. Two lawyers from the law firm suing the Berlitz teachers now run Berlitz's side of negotiations in Japanese and demand the union provide an interpreter. During negotiations, Berlitz managers ask the lawyers for permission before they speak. The law firm in question is famous in Japanese legal circles for union busting.

Stay classy, Berlitz.

UPDATE 7/27: Something just didn't sit right with me after re-reading the article and it's the union's case with the Army Reservist. It's a weak case, especially when it looks like Berlitz was being reasonable in granting several unpaid leaves. Expecting to be able to take multiple unpaid leaves and still keep your job is a stretch in Japan. It's also difficult to see how the union could pin his dismissal on him being the only one in his school to strike. It seems like a moot point to argue when all Berlitz has to do is point out that the teacher has been away from work for extended periods of time.

Whoever wrote The ALT Scam on the Fukuoka General Union blog is probably feeling vindicated right now. The Mainichi Daily News reports:

Public schools here [Kashiwa, Chiba] have been unable to start their native speaker-taught English classes this school year after the city's board of education was accused of violating labor laws with foreign language teachers.

According to the Kashiwa Municipal Board of Education, it has been instructed by the local labor office to change its labor relationship with foreign assistant language teachers (ALTs) in the city's elementary and junior high schools after it engaged in illegal employment practices.

The local education board entrusted part of its English curriculum for primary and secondary school students to a Tokyo-based staffing agency between 2007 and 2009, and a total of 23 foreign teachers belonging to the agency worked as ALTs at 61 local public elementary and junior high schools during this period. Their contracts expired at the end of last month.

The article goes on to say that instructors were working as temporary employees under the guise of subcontractors, and demanding that their contracts be extended. When they complained to the labour board, the board investigated and found that the instructors were under the direct supervision of the schools they worked at even though they were working under dispatch contracts. The problem with this kind of arrangement is that:

Under the current law, companies and other business operators must offer a direct contract to their temporary workers after they have completed the first three years of work. Moreover, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare's labor guidelines require a minimum three-month interval before the two parties enter into another temporary contract.

The city's board of education had planned to terminate its English class teacher outsourcing contract and employ temporary English teachers directly starting this April. However, as the labor office judged that the education board had already forced its contracted foreign teachers to work as normal temporary staff, it became impossible for the city to renew the contracts right away, in accordance with the ministry guidelines prohibiting consecutive temporary contracts of over three years.

The BOE has announced that it will comply with the labour board's order, although English classes have been suspended until July. This is a good first step in breaking what I called "the terrible triangle" in ALT teaching jobs. The complaints to labour boards are having an effect.

Good news if you're worried about the possibility of your visa renewal being denied due to your lack of national health insurance coverage:

The Immigration Bureau is planning to change a new guideline for foreign residents to ease concerns that those without social insurance will be forced to choose between losing their visa and entering the insurance system, a bureau official said Monday.

[...]

"The bureau will delete item No. 8 by the end of March, and 'lightly mention' the need to present a health insurance card in the introductory passage of the guideline," Immigration Bureau spokesman Yoshikazu Iimura told The Japan Times. "The wording will be in a manner to eliminate foreign residents' concerns that their visas won't be renewed if they don't have insurance."

So now the Immigration Bureau will "lightly mention" that you should be
enrolled in shakai hoken or kokumin kenko hoken. Curiously, the article passes off the change as a victory:

Foreigners and their supporters have protested the new
guideline as an infringement on freedom of choice.

I'm late talking about this, but it's worth noting given Hoofin's recent comments on freechoice.jp and health insurance in Japan. After I was asked to take down a letter from a private insurance provider that I posted here, Hoofin went out and did some digging, and came up with a lot of interesting stuff.

1. He found that freechoice.jp's Ron Kessler is connected to HealthOne Japan.
2. In addition to HealthOne, Freechoice may also have links to other sites, including Legend Travel, Legend Travelers, and Nationalhealthinsurance.jp.
3. After Hoofin starts connecting dots, Nationalhealthinsurance.jp goes offline.

If Hoofin's findings are accurate, it makes you wonder if Kessler is honestly fighting for the right for foreigners to choose between national and private health insurance schemes or if he's fighting to protect his health insurance companies or the stakes he may have in them.

The letter that I removed from the blog concluded by urging readers to visit http://www.freechoice.jp/immigration2.asp for more information.Although the page is about "breaking news," as far as I can tell, you can't access it from anywhere within freedomchoice unless you've received the letter or were told about the page by Kessler. Despite the internal fax that apparently softens Immigration's stance on having to enroll in either shakai hoken or kokumin kenko hoken, there's been no independent verification of this to my knowledge. As it stands, the revisions to Guideline 8 are still in effect and immigration offices have signs up reminding people of the changes starting in April.

Moreover, it's difficult to think that Kessler is lobbying the government for change in good faith when he writes on the main page of his website, "Free choice means having the right to choose. A non-Japanese who desires to be on public health care should also not be denied access to it." He's full of it. Foreigners are not being denied access to healthcare in Japan. It is your right and obligation to be enrolled in shakai hoken or kokumin kenko hoken If anything is wrong, it's two things: 1) ignorance by employees and 2) far too many employers, especially in eikaiwa, intentionally not informing their employees of their right to healthcare and foisting some other plan upon them that is no more than travel insurance in disguise.

Can we trust anything on the freechoice website? His claim about Guideline 8 being put on hold hasn't been verified by any other source. Given that he may have incentives to skew things toward private insurance due to his possible connections to HealthOne, the answer has to be, "No."

An LJ reader sent me this letter from his insurance company regarding the new immigration guideline which appears to confirm that the stance on the guideline has been softened. As the letter points out, not being enrolled in a public health plan is insufficient grounds for declining a visa renewal application. It looks like a lot of instructors can breathe a sigh of relief.

Update 11/28: Hoofin makes some salient points on this issue. The focus on Guideline 8 is misplaced in that it doesn't supersede the fact that the law still compels you or your employer to enroll in a national health plan while you are working in Japan. Instead of faxes from Diet members and comments from the Immigration Bureau, we should be seeking answers from the Health Ministry and Social Insurance Agency who have authority over this matter.

Update 12/7: Dmca.com has contacted Let's Japan and informed me that their client requested that this URL be taken down since I posted private and confidential correspondence intended for their client only. On that note, I've removed the letter from this post.

As you are aware, immigration guidelines are set to be changed next April so that you will have to show proof of enrollment in shakai hoken or kokumin kenko hoken when you apply to renew your visa. This is a huge issue for eikaiwa instructors as most are not enrolled in either health plan and are faced with the possibility of having to make hefty back payments upon enrollment.

This change might be on hold, though. According to Ronald Kessler, head of the Free Choice Foundation, which is campaigning for foreigners to be able to opt out of Japan's national health plans and buy their own private coverage, the revisions to the immigration guideline may be scrapped.

The Free Choice Foundation has just received word that an unpopular Immigration guideline is to be repealed.

The news was relayed via a phone call from the office of an Upper House lawmaker* immediately after he had spoken with the Justice Ministry regarding Immigration Guideline No. 8, the mandate that would have required visa applicants to present their social insurance ID cards at the application window. The lawmaker was informed that due to the large number of complaints registered - as well as the communiqué received from the Kobe City Assembly - the Ministry will be deleting (sakujo) Guideline No. 8 from the list of eight guidelines.

Kessler says that the Justice Ministry was overwhelmed by the resistance to the changes and decided to delete the guideline for the time being. No doubt a lot of instructors are going to be very relieved to hear this news.

(h/t ripslyme in the forums)

Novawhiz noticed an update to the GEOS Wikipedia page that was quickly removed:

Recent economic woes have lead Geos to be late paying the Japanese staff in August and September 2009. It is further reported that foreign teachers working at the adult schools were not paid on time in October 2009. Geos is currently asking clients to pay as much as 5 months in advance for the following year's lessons in a bid to raise the necessary funds to meet payroll obligations. This financial distress has led to many Japanese staff members to resign.

The edit in question can be found here.

There may be some truth to this. A thread in a kuchikomi message board wonders the same thing: were the staff late in getting paid? In response to the question, the first post was:

2009/09/22 19:21

はい！！！

そのとうりです！毎月月末のスタッフのお給料がでませんでした。
本部から自宅に電話があり、お金がないので今海外校に送金手続きをしてもらっているから１週間待ってくださいと・・・。
スタッフに払う金がない？？？？
ありえない・・・。
すぐに上司にやめたいと言いました。
却下・・・・。
周りのMGは妊娠した、入院する、母ががん。。。とうそをついて辞めようと必死です。
今月でるのでしょうか・・・。お給料。
NOVAの次とは聞いてますが、いよいよ破産近し・・・・です。

Yes!!!!
Head office called me at home to say that they had no money and to wait a week until they can process wire transfers from overs schools.
They don't have any cash to pay staff????
That's unbelievable.
I immediately told my boss that I wanted to quit.
Got rejected...
Other managers I know are scrambling to quit, saying they're pregnant, have to be hospitalized, or their mother has cancer.
I wonder if we'll be paid this month?
I've heard GEOS would be next after NOVA. Looks like it's ready to go under.

Another commented:

2009/09/30 21:44

9/30日本日もお給料入っていませんでした！！！！！
２回目です。NOVAは４回目の社員お給料遅延で破綻。
いったいどうなるんでしょうか。
２ヶ月もお給料遅れるなんてまずいですね。

2009/09/30 21:44

It's 9/30 and I haven't been paid !!!!
This is the second time. NOVA went bust after pay was late for the 4th time.
What the hell is going on?
Getting paid late for 2 months running is not good.

Another poster says pay was late for instructors, too:

2009/09/30 22:31

今回は講師も遅れましたね。

今回はシステムエラーなのかミスなのか
、まあどっちでもいいですが、2カ月続いての事なので
「ホントかよ！？」って感じです。

2009/09/30 22:31

It happened to the instructors, too.

Whether it was a system error or a mistake, it's happened 2 months in a row. What's up with that?!

Another comment about a "system error:"

2009/09/30 23:26

今日も給料入ってませんでした。本部のシステムエラーだとメールがきていましたが、それが本当のことならあってはいけないミスですよね。かえって売り上げが悪く支払いが遅れますと言ってくれた方がましです。こんなことだからCSの案内するのに気が引けるっつうの。

2009/09/30 23:26

I haven't been paid this month. I got an email from head office saying that it was a system error, but if that's true, it's an inexcusable mistake. I'd rather hear from someone that sales are down and salaries will be late. I'm not up to doing CS [Commission sales] because of this.

Another commenter adds that they finally got paid:

2009/10/05 23:37

９月は１日遅れで入りました！
システムエラーだそうです。
先生が辞める！！！と言い出したのでなだめるのに大変でした＞＜！！

2009/10/05 23:37

September's pay was a day late but I got it!
Apparently it was a system error.
Teachers have started saying that they'll quit and I've had a tough time trying to smooth things over!!

Finally, a student chimed in to say:

2009/09/26 19:20

私は、ジオスに通っている生徒です。
契約更新をするかしないか・・・迷っています。

＞更新時に「ジオスはつぶれませんよね」
＞と言われて「今のところ大丈夫ですよ」としか
＞言えませんでした。

私も、同じ質問をしたところ、
「分からないですからね。」と言われ、
半年契約（？）を勧められました。

先生は凄くいい人で、続けたい気持ちはあるのですが、
NOVAのようにお金だけ払って続けられなくなったらと思うと
怖いです。

年内にも経営破たんをしてしまうのでしょうか。

※ジオスのHPで経営状況を確認したかったのですが、
【売上高：164億円（'06.12月期）】
となっており、通常'08（2009年更新）の売上高が
記載されるべきなのに、過去のものが記載されており、
確認ができませんでした。

2009/09/26 19:20

I'm currently a student at GEOS. I'm thinking about renewing but am having second thoughts

＞They ask during renewals, "GEOS isn't going to go bankrupt, right?," but all I could say was," Right now everything is fine."

When I asked the same question, they told me they didn't know and tried to sell me a 6-month contract (?).

The teachers are really good people and I want to continue, but I'm scared to think that things might end up like NOVA where you pay and are then unable to take lessons.

I wonder if they'll go bankrupt by the end of the year?

*I looked up GEOS's finances on their website and found their sales were 16.4 billion yen (for the period ending Dec. '06) but couldn't find any new numbers even though sales figures for FY'08 should be up there.

These are anonymous comments and I have no way of knowing how much truth there is to what's been said. If the "system error" explanation sounds familiar, it's because NOVA used the same excuse to explain why it had not paid their staff.

Can anybody flesh this out some more? Has pay been late for the past two months? Is this just a one-off event or a sign of more serious trouble to come?

This is how the end came for NOVA. First it was the staff, and then it was the instructors not getting paid. If the rumour is true and the staff has been late in getting paid, it's time to start thinking about Plan B. You don't want to repeat the fisaco of ex-NOVA instructors getting re-hired. The moment you don't get paid, get the hell out as fast as you can. You certainly don't want to end up teaching in a park for food.

UPDATE 02/21: Comments are closed for this post. Continue the discussion here.

The latest development in the dirty undertaking of dispatch teaching:

A labor union of foreign workers requested Monday that the Aichi prefectural board of education address the concerns of English-language instructors at public schools who they say are working under illegal contracts.

The General Union, based in the city of Osaka, said an investigation it conducted last month and communications with municipal boards of education show that foreign teaching assistants in 16 school districts in the prefecture are contracted by private language schools or other agents rather than the school boards themselves.

The union charges that by going through agencies, the school boards are "avoiding the obligation of hiring them directly that comes after a certain period of (temporary) employment has elapsed."

It's all slowly coming to a head. Nothing illustrates the situation better than this 2005 letter from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) acknowledging that gyomu itaku (outsourcing contracts) are illegal.

This notice was sent to all prefectural BOEs, and advises that they give preference to JETs, direct hires, and legal dispatch jobs over gyomu itaku with private dispatch companies. It also recommends that skilled ALTs be made permanent employees （正社員）.

Paragraph 3 in the appendix also contains some noteworthy items. It notes that dispatch contracts can only be made with ministry-approved dispatch companies and that BOEs should make sure they are dealing with approved companies before entering into a contract. It also notes that dispatch contracts are valid for 3 years whereupon the ALT must be made a permanent employee.

This letter is the kind of thing that should lay the foundation for ALT positions to be decent jobs, but instead, what we have is a terrible triangle.

BOEs: Lazy and cheap. They want ALTs in classrooms but don't want any of the hassles that come with having to manage foreigners. They know that dispatch companies can be unscrupulous but use them anyway. They like the steady supply of cheap instructors but aren't smart enough to figure out why the teacher turnover is so high.

MEXT: The letter shows that they are aware of illegal hiring practices, but they aren't doing anything beyond issuing guidance. This particular letter was written in 2005, and clearly nothing has been done in the past 4 years. Recall the fate of Samantha, covered by NHK in 2007. Fast forward to the present, and we still have the same abuses happening to ALTs like Robert and Eric.

ALTs: For some unknown reason, despite the information one can find on the internet about dispatch companies and teaching in Japan, teachers still insist on being taken advantage of by their employers. They work for low pay and no benefits because they'd rather not give up on their dream/fantasy/plan of living in Japan.

Where is the breaking point? There is absolutely no justification to put up with such terrible working conditions. At what point does the whole mess collapse under the weight of its own bullshit? Who takes the first step in breaking the triangle? Do the BOEs smarten up? Does MEXT do something beyond issuing memos? Do ALTs quit in droves or strike for better working conditions?

The Japan Times ran a couple of articles last week on the coming changes in health insurance for foreigners in Japan.

As you are probably already aware, starting next April, you will have to show proof of enrollment in shakai hoken (SH) or kokumin kenko hoken (KKH) when you apply to renew your visa. Jenny Uechi reminds us of the law:

If you are working for a company in Japan, chances are that you are (or need to be) enrolled in shakai hoken, in which you pay half of your health insurance premiums and your company pays the rest. There isn't much ambiguity about shakai hoken: If a company employs more than five people, and an employee is working more than 20 hours a week for a period longer than 2 months, the company is obligated to submit paperwork for an employee's health insurance and pension to the Social Insurance Agency within five days of hiring. With shakai hoken comes the kosei nenkin, or pension plan; the two are a set, and enrollment is mandatory whether you plan to retire in Japan or not.

Meanwhile, people who are unemployed, self-employed, employed by a small firm or retired should be enrolled in kokumin kenko hoken (national health insurance). People paying into this system have to sign up on their own for kokumin nenkin (the national pension) at their city ward office.

Unfortunately a lot of English instructors are unaware of the law and find themselves in a position like "Patrick Johnson:"

Patrick Johnson (not his real name), an assistant language teacher, has recently had to fork out over ¥700,000 in back payments for the last two years he has been living in Japan without national health insurance. He has just paid his final monthly installment of ¥75,000, he explains with a tired sigh of relief. He used to pay for private insurance, but has left the scheme now he is covered by kokumin kenko hoken.

Johnson, who works for a large corporation with far more than five employees, is well aware that he should technically be enrolled in shakai hoken, where his company pays 50 percent of his premiums. But because his contract states that he only works 29.5 hours — well over the 20-hour limit but .5 of an hour below the limit that usually triggers a government crackdown — the company can instead oblige him to sign up for the other option, where he has to bear 100 percent of the cost.

"You know how the system works," he says wearily, as though hour-fudging is a given in Japan's language-teaching industry.

Johnson reflects on his experience with more resignation than rage. Last year, he says, the city started sending letters asking him to pay health insurance. Since he already had private coverage through his company, he did not think much of it, but started panicking when the city approached his company asking for his bank information. Then one day it happened — he saw ¥50,000 had vanished from his bank account

His experience is typical of most instructors. They are generally unaware that their employers should be enrolling them in an insurance scheme and are surprised to learn that they owe up to two years in back payments when they finally do get properly enrolled. This is also one of the reasons why many would like to avoid SH or KKH--they are expensive.

Which brings me to Ronald Kessler's Zeit Gist column in which he argues that foreigners in Japan have special healthcare needs and that for vital reasons of communication, level of service, and repatriation of remains, foreigners should be able to presumably opt out of SH or KKH and choose their own plans.

There are a few problems with Mr. Kessler's argument, however. First, enrollment in SH and KKH is mandated by law, and, lke taxes, you can't choose to not pay. He also forgets to mention that if foreigners do need extra coverage, they can get it from one of Japan's private insurance companies. This is in fact what many Japanese do to cover the gap between SH or KKH should they be hospitalized for an extended period of time. Moreover, he fails to provide any specifics as to what other health insurance plans make them preferable to Japan's public ones. What are the cheaper and more comprehensive health insurance plans? Are they universally accepted across Japan?

One point I agree with him on is that it is curious that Immigration, not the Social Insurance Agency, will effectively be enforcing enrollment. This shifts the burden of enrollment on the instructors, not their employers.

If the government wants to enforce enrollment in this odd manner, then that's there prerogative. Personally, I don't see this an issue of choice insomuch as it is a labour issue. As has been mentioned on LJ before, employers play fast and loose with working hours, drawing up 29.5 hour work weeks so they can avoid having to enroll their instructors in a health plan even if their instructors are physically at school on a full-time basis.

Instead of putting the burden on instructors to enroll, the Social Insurance Agency should be cracking down on the schools who shirk their legal obligations.

One thing is for sure, there will be more than a few instructors who are hit for back payments when they are ultimately forced to enroll. There may even be a few who are unable to renew their visas.

It's time for instructors to be prepared. If your visa is up for renewal next spring, make sure you have some money set aside in case you are have to make back payments. While costly, you can negotiate with local governments and set up a payment schedule that fits your budget or even get your payments reduced.

It's also time to start making some noise about your working conditions. Even "Patrick Johnson" knew his employer was gaming the system yet he turned a blind eye. Don't let your employer rob you of your right to healthcare in Japan. For all its warts and deficiencies, SH and KKH cover you, no questions asked. The choice involved here is not which plan is better for foreigners in Japan, but choosing to stand up to your employer and demanding your right to healthcare coverage.

Old news is fun! The Japan Times reports on Yano Research's survey on the foreign language learning market in Japan, which I wrote about this at the beginning of August and touched on again earlier this month. The only difference with today's article is that the JT spoke with somebody at GEOS.

Susumu Ikegami, a spokesman for Geos Corp., which runs English-language schools in Japan and other countries, said they have been facing a serious decline.

"As the number of students decreased, the number of classrooms also declined," said Ikegami, who declined to give the figure for the classrooms.

Ikegami said the market's downward trend began about five years ago, although the reason is hard to pinpoint. However, he pointed out that the bankruptcy of Nova Corp. in October 2007 had some impact.

It's amazing that Ikegami can't figure out why business is down. You can try and blame NOVA, Lehman Brothers, or swine flu, but you can only wring so much mileage out of those excuses. The article ends with this brilliant plan:

However, Ikegami of Geos said the overall outlook for the language-school market in Japan doesn't appear bright.

"We have 53 schools overseas, and they are doing pretty well. So, while there is the chance of growth from a global outlook, we don't really have a good picture for the Japanese market. Rather than getting more students, we are working to run the business more economically," Ikegami said.

Things don't look good down the road, so let's cut costs? That's it? The market has been sliding for years and GEOS is still at the cut costs/efficiency stage? The article is titled "Few answers for the language market." Is the problem about finding answers to the downturn or the dreadful way in which eikaiwa schools conduct business?

My guess is that it's the latter, with NOVA being the straw that broke the camel's back. All the schools really care about is putting bums in chairs and vacuuming their students' wallets, and NOVA was the poster child of this kind of behavior. METI's press release　describes it in vivid detail, from pressure sales to exaggerated advertising to underhanded refund practices to outright thievery and deception. Other schools have tried to blame its instructors for the failings of the company or sue them for exercising their right to strike.

But the bad behavior doesn't stop at eikaiwa. Dispatch teaching is just as bad. Not only does the job have no benefits, instructors are disposable employees that boards of education pick and choose from and discard at will. Although teaching English looks promising in elementary schools, it should not be forgotten that the potentially lucrative job scene hinges on school budgets. BOEs with no money are more likely to stick with a Japanese teacher than hire an ALT.

The homestay business is more of the same. Gateway21 tore a page from the NOVA playbook with 950 million yen vanishing into thin air as the end result.

To put it bluntly, the rot is extensive, and teachers and students know it. But if the Susumu Ikegamis of the business can't understand why business is bad, then there's not much hope for them. What's the answer that eikaiwas should be looking for? How about: Stop abusing your employees and ripping off your customers?