Welcome to the Nova Union Website
The Nova Union is the union for all teachers and staff working for NOVA foreign language schools in the Kanto region.The Nova Union for Staff and Teachers is affiliated to the NUGW (Tokyo South).
The union is fighting
for the reinstatement
of 3 dismissed teachers.
Hear more ...Radio Interview
of Nambu Organizer
on Public Radio
in the US.Strike
Nova union strikes continue.
Read more ...
The Nova Ginza branch
gets a Mayday
visit from Nambu.
More ...
Are you interested in becoming a member?
Do you want to know the latest news?
Do you want to know about issues?
Do you have something to say?
Why is it a good idea to join the union?
Links to other union websites for foreign language teachers
.
Check out our new "imode" pages with your mobile phones at
http://www.novaunion.com/i/ and let everybody know.
Also works on vodafone/j-phone
Collective Bargaining Refusals to Draw Suit from Nova Union
The Nova Union for Staff and Teachers is lining up to sue Nova at the Tokyo Regional Labour Board (Tokyo Chiho Rodo Iinkai) for refusing to negotiate in good faith.
In April the Nova Union put its massive list of twenty gShuntoh demands before Nova and called for collective bargaining. Negotiations commenced at a collective bargaining session on 27th April. At the session Nova flatly turned down nineteen of the demands, about which no one was the least bit surprised. Obviously Nova considers such things as paying teachers for the work they do preparing lessons totally unreasonable. The demands rejected also included the abolition of Novafs infamous and utterly discredited anti-socialization policy, five demands to ensure fair treatment of members at disciplinary meetings, including the right to have Union representation, paid sick leave, compensation for Novafs practice of not recognizing Japanese national holidays as holidays for teachers, andc wait for itc decent chairs to sit on! Outrageous! What was the demand they accepted (sort of)? Nova agreed to provide the Union with both Japanese and English language versions of the official working rules (which is anyway a legal requirement so impossible to refuse), gprobablyh sometime in June. Itfs now well into July and no sign of them yet.
At the second collective bargaining session on 18th May things went rather less smoothly. The company side refused to negotiate since the Union side had a recording device which was switched on and on the table. The first session had, however, been recorded openly with the recording device on the table, and the company side had said not a thing about it. The Union therefore insisted on recording the negotiations. The session ended swiftly and after a short adjournment with both sides sticking to their guns.
Three subsequent demands for collective bargaining have been refused by Nova because the Union is asserting its right to have a proper record, in audio form, of the negotiations. The Union is claiming that since an audio record is the most accurate it must therefore be mutually advantageous and fair to both sides. The company doesnft see it that way, believing that having a recording device will inhibit the full and honest expression of views at the negotiating table. Funny, Nova didnft seem to be at all inhibited at the first session, although perhaps without the recording they might have felt free enough to refuse all twenty demands instead of just nineteen. Who knows?
NUGW Tokyo Nambu is backing the Nova Union in its stance that making an audio recording of collective bargaining sessions has become standard practice for Japanese unions in negotiation with employers. The Union believes that to refuse to negotiate with this issue as an excuse is an unfair labour practice. Regional Labour Board hearings started on 17th November.
