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

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)

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?

The Japan Times has a good summary of the issues surrounding the changes to the visa renewal process starting in April 2010. I blogged about this a while back, but the Japan Times column covers some of the implications of having to enroll in an insurance scheme in order for foreigners to renew their work visas.

Louis Carlet, deputy secretary of Nambu, laid it down for everyone in the room to understand. There are a few basic things that all foreigners in Japan have to know, he explained: first, that everyone over the age of 20 in Japan is required to enroll in an approved Japanese government health insurance scheme and pension fund. If you are under 75 and working at a company that employs more than five people, this most likely means the shakai hoken (social insurance) program; if you are unemployed, self-employed or retired, the equivalent system is the kokumin kenko hoken and kokumin nenkin (national health insurance and pension). The only people exempt are sailors, day laborers, and those working for companies employing less than five people, or for firms without a permanent address (e.g. a film set).

The two systems cover different ground, all of which is explained in detail at www.sia.go.jp/e/ehi.html. Roughly, shakai hoken consists of two parts: kenko hoken (health insurance), which covers 70 percent of your medical costs and 60 percent of lost wages due to illness, and kosei nenkin (pension insurance), which provides a pension after age 65 for those who have paid into the system. The two are inseparable, and anyone enrolled in shakai hoken through their employer automatically pays into both. The kokumin kenko hoken (national health insurance) and kokumin nenkin (national pension) package offers similar coverage but is not provided through an employer.

The bottom line is that all residents of Japan (except those mentioned above) have to be enrolled in one or other of the two systems. The revised visa laws, therefore, should pose no threat to anyone's visa renewal, because every foreigner in Japan should already be enrolled.

It has long been standard practice within eikaiwa to skirt enrollment of instructors by limiting the working hours in contracts. For example, the contracts Chris and I signed back in the day stated that we agreed to teach up to 28 hours of classes a week. The 28 hours is important because the law stipulates that companies must enroll employees in shakai hoken if the employees work 30 or more hours a week.

In 2005, NOVA brazenly changed working conditions by shortening lessons to 40 minutes and adding 2 minutes of "planning" on either side of each lesson. The net result was more unpaid free tie between classes and instructors working fewer than 30 hours per week. It was a move that supposedly saved NOVA at least ¥1 billion a year in insurance contribution payments.

Enrollment in social insurance is not without its drawbacks. Many would question the wisdom of having approximately ¥30,000 deducted from their paychecks every month, especially if they know they won't be living in Japan long enough to collect a pension. Moreover, if you've never paid into shakai hoken, you may wind up paying up to 2 years in back contributions.

That said, the benefits outweigh any initial pain. For one, you will be enrolled into a health and pension plan you are legally entitled to, and you'll avoid looking foolish like the people at the beginning of the article who didn’t know anything about social insurance in Japan or were dissuaded from joining it.

There is also recognition. Recognition that you are a full-fledged employee entitled to the same benefits as other Japanese workers. This could translate into better working conditions and improved job security. Most importantly, you are covered. No more worries about hospital visits and fewer worries about pension contributions. As the article points out, pension contributes can be refunded, but the maximum amount tops out at 3 year’s worth of contributions.

That doesn’t mean all is lost for long term residents, however. You need to check with your government and find out if it has a pension agreement with Japan. For example, Canada and the UK have them, meaning that contributions paid in Japan count toward your pension back home.

This is a positive development for workers, but it does make you wonder what took so long for this to become a reality.

While I'm on the subject of immigration, the Lower House passed a bill on new residency rules last Friday.

The big changes:

• The alien registration card is replaced with a zairyu (residence) card containing an embedded chip.
• Visa extensions increased to 5 years from 3 years
• No need for re-entry permits provided you return to Japan within one year
• Control of information passed to Immigration Bureau from local governments
• Foreigners listed on the Juki Net resident registry network
• Severe punishment for failure to notify changes in personal information

There are definitely some good things in here, such as longer visa extensions and dropping the requirement for re-entry permits, but I can't help but think that the negatives outweigh any changes for the better.

It's going to be a pain in the ass to have to go the nearest (which could be really far away if you don't live in a large city) Immigration Bureau to report that you've changed jobs. Debito suggested in a recent podcast that employers would not be receptive to foreigner employees taking time off to update their personal information, but I think that's unrealistic. In my experience, employers aren't that hard-nosed and I suspect that they would understand that this has to do with one's ability to reside in Japan. On the other hand, foreign employees will probably end up having to use paid holidays to go about this business.

Then there's the matter of being listed in Juki Net. The system is unpopular with the public due to fears over invasion of privacy and data leaks. The constitutionality of the system was challenged by a group of Aichi residents, but the Nagoya High Court ruled in 2007 that Juki Net was constitutional. Still, there are reasons to be suspicious of how personal information will be used, stored, and protected as the safeguards in place are incredibly flimsy:

The bills also have a provision to prevent the ministry from using that data improperly, a decision that was made to ward off criticism that "the minister" could abuse the zairyu card number to violate foreigners' privacy. But no penalty for such abuse was listed.

The practice, dubbed data-matching, was outlawed by the Supreme Court in regard to its use on Japanese citizens.

The provision says "the justice minister" must limit the use of foreign residents' personal information to the minimum required for managing such residents and that the information must be handled with care to protect the rights of individuals. But no penalties or methods for enforcing such compliance are listed in the bills.

Provisions to prevent abuse of data but without penalties? This is a joke.

Perhaps the most worrisome change has to do with punishment for failing to update one's information:

On the other hand, the Immigration Bureau will tighten control of foreign residents by stripping away their residential status if they fail to report changes in address, marital status or workplace within three months. No regulations for that exist under current law.

In addition, those who fail to report such changes within 14 days or are found not carrying their zairyu cards could be hit with a ¥200,000 fine, the same regulation as the current law.

To crack down on fake marriages, the bills allow the justice minister to cancel the residential status of foreigners holding spouse visas who have not conducted "normal spousal activities," such as living together, for six months without legitimate reason. Legitimate reasons include things like domestic violence, Hosokawa said.

These are very severe punishments. In my case, I wonder what would have happened to me had this law already been in place. When I renewed my visa three years ago, I neglected to inform city hall. It's an easy thing to forget. How often does one look at their alien registration card let alone remember that you have to go to city hall and inform them? If you've been in Japan for more than a few years, it's easy to forget. For all city hall new, I was in the country illegally. The matter only recently came to my attention when my town was handing out the ¥12,000 Taro Aso kickback. I received the application form plus a letter asking me to visit them and confirm my residency status. My visa status? I renewed that years ago. It was only when I looked at my alien registration card that I realized the problem. I quickly cleared things up and the people at city hall were very understanding, but had this new law been in effect, I would have been dealing with the Immigration Bureau and it's unlikely they would have left the matter unresolved for two and half years or be very sympathetic. At best, I may have been fined, at worst, deported.

The new law now criminalizes my forgetfulness. When you consider that police can detain suspects for up to three weeks without charges and regularly stop foreigners they catch riding bicycles, it seems to me that the authorities have added extra pretense to stop foreigners and check to make sure their papers are in order. We're told that the changes are supposed to bring more conveniences to legal foreign residents, but obeying the law won't insulate you from police harassment and scrutiny over your residency status should the provisions in the new law be strictly enforced.

Update: Table of changes from the JT article.

When we last saw Berlitz, it was suing five of its instructors and two officials of the National Union of General Workers (NUGW) Tokyo Nambu for ¥110 million in damages each on the grounds that their strike was illegal and that the union was trying to damage the company.

A column in the Japan Times, however, notes that the court proceedings are going nowhere fast. Instead of pressing their case, Berlitz appears to have decided on a battle of attrition by waiting out its instructors.

Both sides appear prepared for a lengthy legal battle. After the first January court date for Berlitz's lawsuit, Ken Yoshida, one of the union's lawyers, said the company's legal team was "stalling," and that it would be a long, drawn-out court fight. So far, Yoshida's prediction seems to be proving accurate. Berlitz lawyers have been repeatedly late submitting the required documents for both their suit against striking teachers and the Labor Commission hearings. This leads to further delays because union lawyers don't have time to prepare a proper response.

According to Timothy Langley, a lawyer and president of Langley Enterprise K.K., a consultancy specializing in labor issues, such delays by company lawyers are "no big deal, the court is very lenient." He speculates that "it could be their litigation strategy."

"Who can survive this fight the longest? It isn't the employees," said Langley. "The company can survive this fight for a long time. It's one of the costs of doing business. The employees are doing it because it's their livelihood. It wears on the employees much more than on the company."

As the column notes, suing workers for an illegal strike is an attack on Article 28 of the Constitution, which guarantees the right to organize and to bargain and act collectively, and would have ramifications for industrial relations across Japan. Fortunately, the law is on the side of the instructors, and Berlitz's argument that the strike is illegal is very weak.

The second hearing in the suit lasted a matter of minutes. One judge complained that after reading the company's recently filed documents he still couldn't understand their reasoning for why the strike was illegal. He told Berlitz's lawyers to provide a concise and understandable summary of their arguments before the next hearing. Looking at the crowd of union supporters in the courtroom, the judge added that the summary was necessary not only to help him understand the company's position, but also for the benefit of all those coming to hear the case.

Campbell expressed disappointment at the latest delay. "It's the dragging-on that's very frustrating. They sued in December and you'd think they would have their evidence prepared. In this case they sued and then prepared their evidence. Not only that, but they took an enormous amount of time and still haven't finished it all."

Union rep Carlet added, "It's outrageous that the company has submitted almost nothing in terms of evidence that the strike is illegal. They haven't specified where the damages are coming from. All they did was sue, and they haven't come out with anything."

Since the article compares the case to "trench warfare," I expect there will a lot casualties once this battle is over. But this is something worth fighting for. If instructors don't stand up for their rights, they will forever be stomped on by their eikaiwa employers. That said, I wonder if Berlitz isn't shooting itself in the foot with this lawsuit. Berlitz claims that the instructors intended to harm the company, but when they decided to sue their own employees, they showed everyone for what they really are: a malicious, union-busting employer.

Great company to work for:

It has been 14 months since members of the Berlitz General Union Tokyo (Begunto) first downed chalk and launched rotating strikes against the language school Berlitz Japan.

The strike has grown into the longest and largest sustained strike by language teachers in Japan. While about 500 Nova teachers struck during that firm's collapse in 2007, the action only lasted a day.

The dispute entered a new phase on Dec. 3 when, after nearly a year of strike action by union members, Berlitz Japan served notice they were suing the five teachers who serve as volunteer Begunto executives, as well as two officials of the National Union of General Workers (NUGW) Tokyo Nambu: President Yujiro Hiraga and Louis Carlet, the deputy general secretary and case officer for Begunto. The suit also names NUGW Tokyo Nambu and its Begunto branch as defendants.

Claiming the strike is illegal and that the union is trying to damage the company, Berlitz Japan is suing for ¥110 million in damages from each defendant.

It's not as if Berlitz is hurting for money. Benesse, its parent corporation, made a profit of ¥384 billion in fiscal 2007. Last year was even better:

The financial health of Benesse Corp., Berlitz Japan's parent company, also influenced the timing of the strike. In their annual report for the financial year ending March 31, 2008, Benesse recorded their highest-ever earnings. Operating income grew 11.4 percent and Berlitz International Inc. achieved its best result since being bought by Benesse. Operating income for Benesse's language company division rose 36 percent from the year before to ¥6.35 billion, in part due to higher revenues and profits at Berlitz International, which benefited from "an increase in the number of lessons taken worldwide, particularly in Japan and Germany," according to the report.

How malicious is Berlitz? Despite record earnings, it has decided that suing a few teachers and the strike organizers is preferable to sitting down and negotiating. A company that sues it own workers for exercising their right to strike? That's a company you don't want to work for. Screw Berlitz.

Further reading

BEGUNTO - The Berlitz General Union Tokyo website

As parent firm posts record profits, Berlitz teachers strike back

Berlitz strike grows despite naysayers

BEGUNTO is on strike: Let's Japan forums