BLACKLIST OF PART-TIME POSITIONS AT JAPANESE UNIVERSITIES

BLACKLIST OF JAPANESE UNIVERSITIES
(http://www.debito.org/blacklist.html)
ADDENDUM

BLACKLIST FOR PART-TIME TEACHING POSITIONS
AT JAPANESE UNIVERSITIES

APOLOGIA: While the abovementioned Blacklist of Japanese Universities focusses upon full-time (joukin) contracted positions for foreign faculty, there has also been demand for information about another significant source of income for Japanese educators: university part-time positions (hijoukin).

However, the Blacklist Monitor has been chary of branching outside the rubric of full-time positions for fear of blurring the point about Academic Apartheid in Japan: dichotomous employment conditions based upon nationality only (tenure from day one for Japanese, perpetual temporary contracted positions for foreigners), continuing for well over a century in Japanese higher education. If one includes part-timers in the original Blacklist, the distinction of nationality as employment qualification becomes blurred, since every part-timer, Japanese or foreign, in Japan is by definition on a term-limited contract. Inclusion invites the pedants to obfuscate and deligitimize the very real issues out there of systemic and systematic discrimination in Japan by country of origin.

Nevertheless, as a friend put it, "foreign teachers are subject to other forms of discrimination in the education field based on nationality as is the case with full-time assignments. All in all [the treatment of part timers] is more evidence that foreign teachers are treated differently and in ways that keep us on the fringes of society. Unacceptable given the contributions we make to education in Japan."

Thus there are cases out there which deserve to be known about, and the Blacklist Monitor is willing, within reason and the extensive efforts of outside substantiators, to provide a link and an outlet for the world to view. Therefore, though this Blacklist of Part-Time Teaching Positions is hardly exhaustive, it will serve as a brief listing of egregious cases.

Part-time positions at these universities should be avoided at all costs, for reasons extensively substantiated below.

--Arudou Debito, Blacklist Monitor

NAME OF UNIVERSITY: Kobe Shinwa Women's College (Private)
LOCATION: Suzurandai, Kobe
EMPLOYMENT ABUSE: A questionnaire was collected from foreign teachers which asked them to indicate their intention to teach at the college the following fiscal year. The questionnaire had only one column to respond for teachers teaching 2 classes but no column for those teachers having 3 or 4 classes at the college, in effect cutting classes from those teaching more than 2 classes because they were unable to reply and indicate an intention to teach.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION: Education Workers and Amalgamated Union Osaka (EWA) http://ewaosaka.org

NAME OF UNIVERSITY: Kobe University of Foreign Studies (Private)
LOCATION: Kobe
EMPLOYMENT ABUSE: Introduced a system of new wages to a foreigner part-time instructor from the current fiscal year. Whereas the teacher had received a salary every month, the new system would see the teacher be paid a daily wage based only on hours actually worked regardless of a class being cancelled due to a school event, a traffic accident, or some other uncontrollable happening. No class means no salary.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION:Education Workers and Amalgamated Union Osaka (EWA) http://ewaosaka.org

NAME OF UNIVERSITY: Tezukayama University (Private)
LOCATION: Tezukayama, Nara
EMPLOYMENT ABUSE: Unilaterally cut classes from several veteran part-time teachers for the 2002-2003 academic year. The university shamelessly cut classes from union members and others while at the same time hired new teachers. A formal protest was made and the union member's classes were almost reinstated after negotiation with the school who had cut his teaching load in half. The union member was promised that the classes will be reinstated in 2003. Other teachers were treated badly during this process and EWA is now monitoring Tezukayama very closely.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION: Education Workers and Amalgamated Union Osaka (EWA) http://ewaosaka.org

Submissions to this list are welcome. Application is here. However, I would request that extensive substantiation be made available, as it has been above, to avoid the counterarguments of "Hey, the Japanese are under the same contracted conditions, so where's the discrimination?" Unlike the Blacklist for full-timers, this is much harder to demonstrate with, say, a simple job announcement.

(last updated July 2002)
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