On the survey, I got responses similar to Isis’.
One instructor who has taken his name of the board so as not to show what time he has “shadow offices” (he gets a lot of them)commented that he felt there was a better way and not hurt the students while just hurting Benesse. I approached him and asked him if he knew Berlitz’s policy on struck lessons? (If the second lesson is struck, students are not charged for the first lesson taken. If both lessons are struck,
students get their next two lessons at no charge. That is
written in a memo in Japanese posted on our reception desk
from HQ to all mgrs. They don’t say what happens if the
first lesson is struck and the student leaves for the
second…) He didn’t know this. He said”Oh”.
I told him that these shadow offices are a way to hurt Benesse financially. I asked him for his idea and he said to picket in front of Benesse HQ and don’t let them in. I told him that would be considered obstruction of business and we would get hauled off.
He said “Oh.”

Another instructor who has also had his schedule taken of the board said that he didn’t want to get children involved. I asked if him if he knew the policies above, he didn’t, I admitted to him that we were inconveniencing the students, but mostly Benesse was responsible because our demands are not unreasonable(he agreed with that) and they could easily end it if they cared about the students. I asked him if we were a a daycare center and our business was taking care of children and if management was treating us unfairly, other than striking, how could we improve the situation. He said that it was an interesting question and he still hasn’t given me a solution yet. It’s funny but he says that his biggest influence is Noam Chomsky but he won’t join a union, even though he knows corporations are tyrannies.

I guess what I’m saying here is, instructors who don’t strike may actually have concerns towards the students, they think. Whether, they are using it as an excuse because of other reasons or not, we can’t know, but I’ve found that informing and reassuring those instructors should be something we need to do and after we have informed them and let them think about it and they still don’t join then we know they don’ have the courage & that’s as far as we can go with them. You can lead a horse to water….

Could that be the Benesse/Fukutake way? Reduce conditions, accelerate turnover in their operations to keep cost labor costs down and increase profits through casualization of the workforce.

‘Negotiations’ at Berlitz are what management does to tie down union resources as long as possible, wasting the officers’ time, remember they are volunteering and are not paid for their time while management is, and hopefully demoralizing the negotiators so that they will be beaten before actions even begin. The union got on to this some time ago, negotiations backed by a credible threat of action or action itself is the only way to achieve anything significant for the workers at Berlitz.

Thank you for your continuing support.