To:  American School in Japan

Director of the Board, Karen Thomas

       Headmaster, Tim Carr

Letter of Request

We would like to request the following for the Danko scheduled on March 8, 2004 with the attendance of members of the Tokyo Arbitration Board.

1.        In Japan, employer's are obliged to set their retirement age over 60 and have been urged to extend employment until age 65.  ASIJ has a retirement age of 65 for Japanese staff. In Tokyo 56% of private schools have a retirement age of 65.  And in America age discrimination is illegal.  Why does the Board not only continue, but is actually proposing to increase this discrimination? 

March 5, 2004

Answers to the request dated Feb 23, 2004

Lawyers representing the Board (VERY official language and the names below are derived from the Kanji given)

Yoshinari Tsutsumi, Takefumi Tamiya, Shuuichi Yoda, Shingo Nakamura, Yasushi Yanagisawa, Tomohiro Murakami, Makoto Nagaii

1.        a) A retirement system is not age discrimination.  Therefore the claim of the Union which says that work regulations has an age discrimination has no merit.

b)         The old policy of ASIJ says normally the workers retire at age 60.  As an exception, with the agreement of both sides, (rehiring judgment was up to the school), the school was able to choose which teachers to rehire.  They approved extension of employment for not more than one year.  On the other hand, under the new regulation if you reach age 60 you retire from the school, but at the same time the workers now have the guaranteed right to continue extension of their contract.  As such, the new regulation raises the retirement age from 60 to 65, in fact.  So the Union's assertion, which says that the new regulation is expanding age discrimination, has no merit.

2.        Retirement policy #4140 stated that Retirement will normally be at the end of the school year in which the teacher reaches the age of 60.  By Oct 1^st of the school year in which the teacher reaches age 59, the teacher shall request a waiver by the administration if he/she wishes to continue employment beyond the school year in which he/she reaches age 60.  If the teacher wishes to work after this retirement age the request was customarily accepted with the same salary and benefits.  The replies of the six administrators showed this fact. The reason that the teachers previously did not request the extension to age 65 was that there were no difficulties in continuing to work at ASIJ.  The Board said that the rehiring was at the discretion of the Administration and some were not extended.  The Union has shown by former administrators and school statistics that teachers who requested waivers were normally rehired with the same work regulations.  We would like the school to show us how many were not extended ONLY because of age 60.

2.        a)  The Union claims that if you wished to continue to work it was customary to be approved, but, as we mentioned before, the acceptance of the waiver is based upon the agreement of both parties. In fact, the School has a hearing concerning the worker in the case of extension of employment and work conditions and health conditions 6 months before the extension of the work period. They judge the needs of school management and if there is a need for employment by the school then they rehired the worker.

b)         With regard to the request of extension of employment there were thirteen cases of rejection of extension in the past ten years. 

3.        Now at ASIJ, after the rehiring, non-regular contracts have no changes in class teaching, duties, and after school activities.  These are the same as regular contracts and the wages including retirement is step 10.5up to 24% reduction.  This is illegal by International Labor Organization human rights standards.  The Board first said this change of work regulations (reduced wages) was financial and later they said it was a financial/managerial decision.  We again here ask the reason for our changes of work regulations. 

3.        a)  The Union claims that after rehiring on the non-regular contract the duties are the same as a regular contract, but the work conditions after the rehiring are different in work hours (after the rehiring is reduced by 30 minutes a day) and the duties on Professional Development Days (after the rehiring one is exempted from attendance).  Therefore the Union's claims are false.

b)         The reasons for the changes in work regulations are guaranteeing employment up to age 65, clarification of the rehiring criteria, and clarification of work conditions.  The school, with the new regulations, raised the retirement age and clarified the work conditions.

4.        ASIJ revised the work regulations on March 2001, April 2001, and March 2002.  In Japanese law, disadvantageous changes of work regulations without the agreement of the workers is illegal.  Especially, unilateral disadvantageous changes of work regulations without justifiable reasons is not acceptable. It is stated that the workers who have been working before the disadvantageous changes of regulations have the right to vested interest and can demand their rights according to the old regulations.  Therefore, this is what we request.

4.        a) As we mentioned before, under the old regulation, rehiring after retirement was at the discretion of the school.  Therefore the claim of vested right does not have any merit. 

b)         On occasion of the change of regulation the School discussed this with the FSCC and the Personnel Committee.  The School had enough input from the workers and listened to the opinions and raised the wages after rehiring.  The Union claims this was a unilateral change.  From these facts, this clearly is not the truth. The School wants the Union to show what grounds there are to this claim.

5.        Since the formation of the Union in April 2002, we have been having danko where we asked questions such as those above. The Board has not given us a clear answer and has acted insincerely.  The Union has submitted a request on January 23, 2004 to the Board, but the answers were only one-way verbal comments through the arbitrator.  We are not the cause of this conflict, and we do expect HONEST answers to our questions.  Again the Union asks for sincere answers from the Board.  

5.        a)  The Union is asking for a response to the questions dated on January 23, 2004.  The Board has already answered at the Arbitration meeting on February 2, 2004.  (If the request of the Union is an answer to those questions again, these answers are the same as numbers 1 to 4 above.)

b)         Since April, 2002 the Board received the request from the Union and had several meetings and by re-examining the policies, etc. the Board attempted to uphold the rights of the Union and had sincere negotiation (for the questions above the Board gave the answers several times already).  The Union claims that the Board reaction was always insincere but they are not listening to the Board's position and not listening to the School who is trying to act sincere at the meetings and trying to understand.  The Union keeps asking the requests which are very unrelated to the proposal from the Board.  The Board hopes these kind of actions are not repeated.