…The General Union Interac Branch…

Hi all, The Corrector here.
We are taking another survey amoung our fellow Interac/Maxceed employees (this survey is not limited to Union Members).

Here is the question:
Are you enrolled in unemployment insurance?

With the recent fall of NOVA and the stranding of many good teachers, most of which have gone weeks or months without pay, we should all turn our attention to something ELSE that we should all have: unemployment insurance, or 雇用保険 (Koyoh Hoken).

The Corrector (that’s right, The Corrector refers to The Corrector in third person) recently called ハローワーク(Hello Work) and was informed that if you work 20 hours a week, then you can sign yourself up for insurance. After more digging, The Corrector found this information as well:

Unemployment insurance
From October 1st, 2007 the eligibility criteria for unemployment insurance benefits changed. Previously, the unemployment insurance system classified workers into two categories, general insured workers (一般被保険者 - ippan hihokensha), who work 30 hours of more per week, and “part-time” insured workers (短時間労働被保険者 - tanjikan rodo hihokensha), who work 20 hours or more but less than 30 hours per week. The new system no longer makes a classification based on the category a worker is enrolled in.
The two major changes are:
1. Workers enrolled as “part-time” insured workers will be eligible to receive unemployment benefits sooner in the case of dismissal or corporate layoffs. To qualify they will need to have worked 11 days or more , for 6 months or more, in a 12 month period prior to the date of separation.
2. When ceasing employment voluntarily all insured workers will now need to have worked 11 days or more, for 12 months in a 2 year period prior to the date of separation to qualify for unemployment benefits. Eligibility criteria does change, the above information is a guide only. For further detailed information concerning eligibility on unemployment insurance in Japan see this link.

You can yourself up, just by going to your local Hello Work center with a few paystubs and at least one envelope with your address on it. Those fancy Interac/Maxceed business cards might not hurt either.

The only problem with signing up for insurance, is that sometimes a company (such as Interac) will try to prevent you from signing up for it. Why? Well, two reasons basically.
1) They don’t really care about you or your financial stability, and
2) It costs them a little money because the foot the bill(I mean, why else fight it right? Oh yeah, reason number one. It ain’t like it is expensive anyway… it is less than 1% of each month’s salary. Come on Interac….).

There are various tactics that they can use to do this, and you sometimes have to fight for it. That is where we, the General Union, come in. We can help by helping you present your case after delving into your work history.

Now, as always we are collecting information on as many Interac teachers as possible (you don’t have to be a Union member to send us stats about your work environment or ask questions or get advice). We know that some members DO have unemployment insurance, but we want to help ensure that ALL teachers do. We know that the heads of Interac are already reading this site, so don’t be surprised if they suddenly call you up and say “By the way, are you signed up for unemployment insurance? No? Sorry about that, let’s get you enrolled!” (ヒント！). If this actually happens after this article is posted, be sure and drop us a line and let us know.

We are interested in as much information as possible so here is our survey question #2:
Are you enrolled in unemployment insurance?

If you don’t have time to send an explanatory email, just give us a click on the poll to the right, and email us at length when you have time to
interac at generalunion.org
Tell us how many hours you work, the length of your current contract, how long you have worked for Interac and anything else you can think of that might be useful for collective bargaining.

You may still send us info about our previous (Flexible Holidays) survey at anytime, as well as entering info on the clickable version of the poll here:

As always, take care and contact us when you need help or answers.
More info on Hello Work here
Solidarity.
The Corrector.