Merry Christmas from GComm...

Who thought that no-one in Japan had any Christmas spirit??? Here is a very late update (this actually happened about a week ago, but Christmas festivities...) All the people who took the B Option got fired... That's it... There are no jobs for you with GComm unless you want to work in restaurants...

The email was sent to me by about 3 sources... One of which was an anonymous comment on this blog... I will include it here...

Thank you for requesting re-employment with G.education. Since taking over operations at Nova we have put all our efforts into proceeding with the reopening of branches. As a result, we expect to have approximately 130 branches offering Nova lessons during December 2007.
At the same time, the Trustees in Bankruptcy are making progress with dissolving Nova Corporation. At present they have started proceeding sequentially with terminating leases of properties which will not be taken over by G.education and the problem of unpaid wages. With the cooperation of property owners, we have managed to rapidly reopen many branches but now intend to more closely align branch reopenings with the current business situation. The process of opening the Ekimae Ryugaku branches and restarting lessons requires a lot of time, personnel and expense. To enable us to offer lessons even more quickly to students who still have unused lesson points, we will shift the focus of development from the branches to expanding Ochanoma Ryugaku lessons with a view to even opening new Multimedia Center facilities overseas.

In the current business situation, it is only possible for G.education to employ a limited number of instructors in January and while we appreciate your request for re-employment from January 10, 2008, it is with great regret that we inform you that we are not able to offer you a position at G.education at this time.

This has been a very difficult decision for G.education to have to make and we would like to offer assistance to all applicants, including information about other employment options or financial assistance with purchasing an air ticket to your home country. Additionally, the G.communication group has opportunities available in the restaurant industry and would welcome inquiries if you have an interest in this field. We will also continue to assist the Trustees in Bankruptcy with the necessary documentation for making applications for reimbursement of unpaid Nova Corporation wages.

While the current business situation makes this decision unavoidable, we hope to be able to contact you and ask you for your assistance if possible once business operations allow.

In our endeavor to continue Nova fs business, we are constantly forced to make difficult decisions and, while our aim is to be able to have as many students as possible return to the branches and as many instructors as possible continue employment, it is with a heavy heart that I have to inform you of this decision and ask for your understanding.

We wish you all the best with your future endeavors.

Takashi Ono
Chief Executive Officer
G.education Co. Ltd.
5-12-3 Hondori
Kurokawa
Kita-ku
Nagoya-shi

There were a few people who made these jokes to me when GComm took over the business, as they owned a whole bunch of restaurants and izakayas... But of course I couldn't take any of that seriously until now...

Fortunately, I only personally know 4 people who took the B Option but none of them were actually seeking re-employment, they had either found other jobs in Japan or were using the 150,000 yen to help buy a plane ticket home... Some people I have heard of, though, used the period until January 10 to take a Christmas holiday home and are sitting in their home countries now trying to decide what to do... Go back to Japan and find another job... Just stay here and cut my losses... Go back to tie up any loose ends... All I can do is express my condolences to those having to much such tough decisions over this Festive Season...

Merry Christmas All...

The GComm NOVA Blog would like to wish everyone who bothers to read this and share the information a Merry Christmas and Prosperous New Year... I will post again soon... I have heard about the email... I will comment about this terrible state of affairs in the coming day or two! Take care all, and enjoy the Holiday in the way it was meant to be enjoyed!!! Safely...

The mysterious brown envelopes...

So... Speaking to some friends yesterday, I have heard that some Rishokuhyos have arrived... these came in a couple of days ago, and that I know of, only came for people who have said they will not go on to further employment with GComm NOVA... Does anyone else have a similar experience? Are there more people that have received the large envelopes? I haven't...

They said they received a bunch of information in Japanese in a large brown envelope (the same size as the big ones we have at NOVA)... Most importantly it contained a large (A3) page I think they said it was green, with handwritten amounts of the salary owed to them over the months that they were not paid for... Now I assume this means that they are entitled to 80% of the number shown on that form, and that there will be a substantial wait for that money...

The regular application time when a small company goes under is about 1 month I am led to believe, but in the case of NOVA (one of Japan's largest ever bankruptcies, and the one that has led to the most creditors out of pocket in history) then that application time could be substantially longer... Not that one should necessarily believe the 6 month figure being bandied around (particularly as the only "sources" quoting that number are union figures who spend a lot of their time scare and hate mongering)...

The actual amount of time it's going to take is an uncertainty, but it is certain that 1 month will be too short... It is, however a possibility that people could start to see their money within the next 3 or 4 months... Certainly not ideal, but better than the 6 month wait we are being told to expect as a certainty...

So for those that have received them, good luck! Let us know how the application process goes... For those who haven't let us know when you do finally get them...

I apologize for the 4 day absence...

Glad to hear that a lot of you have been receiving your money... Are there any people that are still waiting on money from the G-Unit?

So I show up at work yesterday and my staff come running up to me... "I have a letter for you from GComm"... Take a quick look and it's a payslip... Unfortunately there within was withheld the awful news... Anon was correct... We were not getting paid again until January 15, 2008.

This means that after all the waiting, all the trouble, and all the issues and most of our continual struggles to pay rent, we now have a 41 day wait from one pay to the next... I guess that is slightly better than the previous wait, which was either a 79 or 68 day wait depending on whether you were a trainer or not... And at least this time we are being promised a full paycheck... A FULL PAYCHECK!!! UNBELIEVABLE... Almost inconceivable until a few weeks ago... But 41 days is still a long time to wait... If they don't pay on the 15th, I will be the least happy man in Japan... My rent will be late now... Hope the real estate agent is OK with that...

Got a text message from a former coworker with 2 main details... Number 1, his new company sucks as they get paid less, work longer hours and they get no rest time... Like absolutely no break time in between lessons, and a 20-30 minute lunch break...

The other thing though was that he has not received any severance documents at all... He was quite concerned as expected... I explained that I had received the initial severance documents, but not the ones that we needed to apply for the past salaries (thanks Paul)... Has anyone else not received their initial paperwork? Are there any stranded people who can not apply for unemployment because they don't have the paperwork?? If you have time, leave a comment, let everyone know if you are OK regarding severance documents, money etc...

Sorry all..

Celebratory beverages have coincided with a bout of illness as well as further celebratory beverages... Seeing as this post has taken about 10 minutes, I think it would be wise for me to post on Monday when I am a little more sober...

My ship has come in...

We got paid... I got about what i expected in my bank account.., When I got into work this morning I went to the ATM and saw I got paid... I will post again after celebratory beverages...

Another day... Not another yen... Maybe today...

OK, the 5th came and went and no-one got paid... I didn't post last night as it would have been loaded with expletives and curse words... This morning I can look back and laugh... What else can you do?

I checked my account late on Tuesday night (at about 1am)... When NOVA was a viable company, the money used to go in at midnight automatically, but no money had been deposited... I got a text message from a colleague yesterday at noon saying that her money had not been deposited either... I arrived at the branch and everyone was asking... "Did you check your account?" everyone had, as we are all broke... No-one had any money...

The AAM called and explained that when they got paid on December 30 for the December 10-20 period (as they had worked from December 18) that the pay had gone in at 2pm a day late... During the afternoon a fax came... (I have included it verbatim)...

"Regarding the trouble of the data transmission of the salary and reward.

Thank you for your continued effort to revitalize new NOVA.

Today December the 5th is the Supposed payday for the former month payment from the 20th November to the 30th November.

But we are sorry to inform you that your salary for November has not transferred to your bank account yet because of some errors in the transfer operation system with the banks to which the data of your payment was already sent.

We are now looking into this problem and asking the banks to transfer money by today. In case your salary should not be put into your bank account by today, we will change the way to transmit the salary so that you will definitely receive your salary tomorrow.

We are very sorry to have caused any worry.
We greatly appreciate your understanding in this matter.

G.education"

Sound familiar? The teachers room echoed with "What? No black clouds this time?"... A silent rage covered with laughter filled the room...

Speaking to the AAM that evening he explained that GComm had never made such a large bank transaction as the salaries become one major transaction and if there is one error, they send the whole thing back... There were 110 errors in the salary deposit...

Trying to remain positive, the monkey never said the word definitely... He used things like scheduled and maybe... Also, our staff called one of the G.Ed or GComm bosses, before the fax came and he also said that we would get paid today (December 6)... NOVA had the details sorted and just had to plug in numbers, GComm have had to try and enter the data of about 2000 people and their bank and salary details in about 3 days... It doesn't surprise me that the first one was late... I'll give them the benefit of the doubt... for now...

Let's see how that goes... There is only so long you can keep people going on promises... We'd better get paid today, that's all I'm saying...

The time has arrived, or at least the paperwork...

So, I received my Rishokuhyo or notice of termination effective on November 30th, yesterday... Even though I have been working for the new company since November 22nd, it still says that I am dismissed from the old NOVA effective on November 30th... That's OK I have been reassured that it becomes effective on the day I started work with GComm...

The pack came in an envelope naming NOVA as the bankrupt company and inside there were about 5 pieces of paper... the main one is the release or dismissal form, and after thet there is a 4 page booklet about finding work at HelloWork for those that are yet to get a job or are looking for work other than NOVA... I haven't yet gone to the effort of reading these documents carefully, so I am not sure if they include the process of applying for past salaries in them... If anyone else has read them, please post a comment and let me know if something like that is included... Otherwise, please let us know what we have to do if you have any information...

Well, just a short one today, hopefully tomorrow, I'll have more to write, as I will have been at the branch and tomorrow is slated to be payday! I hope it's on time this time... I have forgotten what it's like to be paid...

2 updates in a day...

Sorry I haven't updated for a couple of days... I have been a touch busy... I can afford to just a little bit now as the advance came through...

We started working on Thursday November 22, filled in the paperwork then, the AAM took it in the next morning. Friday November 23 was a national holiday and then we had the weekend. So the process probably didn't start until Monday the 26th... We ended up getting the 50000 yen on Thursday November 29. A little later than expected, but we got it... This gives me a bit of confidence in the new company, as with the old company, we would never have seen that money...

Schedules have also become a little confusing in the branch as our branch and the neighboring one are both closed on Monday... So some instructors are doing self swaps, some are changing days off, some are taking unpaid days off for the Mondays... Help shifts don't look to be an option as for now, so few branches are open that there is no realistic place to do the help shifts...

Lessons in the branch started yesterday but as I was off, I am not sure how it all went... I wonder if anyone else has started lessons yet... If anyone has, please leave a comment and let me know how it's going...

The new system...

The new lesson system is posted on the internet as a PDF file... It should be easily readable in your browser though...

There are 2 kinds of lesson plans in place... Number 1 is the standard plan, and 2 is the Senior Plan... (GComm are after the Grey Yen it would seem...)

Lessons can be booked for either 4, 8, 12, 16, or 20 lessons per month and are to be paid monthly... In this system students can not use these points for Man to Man lessons as they used to... When I asked the staff, they explained that for students who want to book Man to Man lessons there is a different plan... If you look at the PDF file, its the box on the right of the 2 standard and senior plan boxes... So ex NOVA students who want to take 12 group lessons a month, will end up paying 6900 yen a month and those who buy the Man to Man system will pay 27600 a month for 12 man to man lessons...

Similarly VOICE and KIDS students have to buy their points back at a reasonable price, but seeing as the already paid old NOVA once having to repay doesn't seem too reasonable...

For those who can read Japanese there is a Q&A for students up on the G Education website...

New colors...

By the way, you might have noticed that the colors of the blog have been changed due to popular request (2 people)... Let me know if there are any other cosmetic changes you think would help the readability of the blog... Thanks...

The big news...

Saw some interesting news as reported on Lets Japan... It looks like (old)NOVA has now officially declared bankruptcy and gone into liquidation...

This is good news for a couple of reasons. Firstly it means that instructors waiting on backpay are one step closer to receiving their rishokuhyo (the official letter of dismissal from the company which is essential to any unpaid wage claim)...

Hopefully it will also be a cue to start criminal proceedings against those responsible for, at the very least, the withheld wages, and probably to a greater extent, criminal negligence... These people have hurt a lot of people along the way and they need to pay for what they did... I hope retribution against the Monkey is swift and hard, as he has made a lot of people, particularly those with families to feed, suffer unnecessarily due to his abysmal economic management...

The procedures for receiving backpay will become clearer soon and the Japan Labour Health and Welfare Organisation website has an explanation of the system of application for backpay... and an explanation of English consultation times, but as can be seen there is no information for next week, so if anyone has any time to get down there by the end of this week (I don't), please head down to Kawasaki and find out what we all have to do... I would really appreciate a comment to help everyone out...

As promised earlier, I have the information on student courses and prices and will put that up in the next couple of days...

Back from my weekend...

Sorry all, I just had my weekend and spent almost every last yen I had at a couple of celebratory functions...

Got into work today, and quite a few of the teachers had the day off, so the Teacher's Room was a bit emptier than it had been... Still there were about 7 or 8 people there... Over the weekend some people had bought some Craft materials and we could get down to the nitty-gritty of making our introductory posters... After preparing the training sessions tomorrow, and in between card games, many of which had unsavory names, but one of which I ended up quite adept at... The Training needed to be scheduled, the instructors are are starting to or are about to go stir crazy ... Two of the instructors got the posters finished to varying degrees of success, mine not so successful... The other one much more so...

Staff confirmed with us today that December 1st would be the first day of lessons, but as the computer systems are still not fully operational the Japanese staff must handwrite all schedules for now... But as bookings only start getting taken from tomorrow, I can't imagine that there will be too many lessons booked on the schedule even though after only one day, they have already opened 3 kids classes...

Also I received an email from my AAM that if any instructors wanted to continue their job at GComm NOVA, they were to wait for a phone call about an info session at Head Office on Wed/Thu and that all instructors that still wanted a job back needed to be available for these sessions on these days... I would, however also recommend that all waiting instructors call their supervisor or even better, their AAM to make sure they are on the list to get called... It sounds like these people will be going in to sign up officially for the new company... But again, please check with your AAM or call Head Office for more information...

The Second day in...

Went in again yesterday of course... The second day of work and there were about 10 instructors there altogether as well as 5 or 6 Japanese staff... Only one of those was the same as the staff that were there the day before... Looks like the staff are going to be shuffled around a lot as they are planning to do with the instructors...

The AAM was in to sign more documents with the 3 new instructors who agreed to come in to the branch starting yesterday... One of those three, though, thought it over a bit and decided that seeing as he was planning to go home at the end of the year, and he had lots of stuff to do, that he would not sign up... So we have 11 instructors in a branch that should hold 5... That's OK... There is absolutely nothing to do anyway...

Again, I met a bunch of students from nearby branches who were overly happy to see us, some even being brought to tears by the sight of their favorite instructors... This is one of the moments that makes me feel pretty happy, particularly after reading people writing that we are all the scum of the earth and hated by all Japanese people... There are at least a few people that don't hate us... The students were given a questionnaire and a pamphlet with the lesson system to fill out and read respectively, and I grabbed a copy of it... Will do a bit of amateur translation of it tomorrow...

Staff and the AAM confirmed that there was no chance of lessons starting until at least December so there are going to be lots and lots of days of doing very little...

The First Day

So I went in to the (new)NOVA branch yesterday... I arrived early and it turns out the NOVA and GComm staff had been there since 10 (all of them were on the late shift...) I am hoping that this was just an opening day anomaly... It would not be fair otherwise...

When I arrived, the AAM was there already and had been since 11... He warmly welcomed me and had me sit down in the VOICE room while we waited for the other instructors... A branch that usually had 5 instructors max had 9 yesterday and will have 12 today as 3 other instructors start up... GComm's goal is to get every single instructor that said they wanted their job back on the books by November 30 at the latest...

When I sat down yesterday, I was handed a piece of paper addressed to NOVA teachers and about NOVA's first day... It thanked all of the instructors for coming in and explained that our shift for the day was from 1PM to 9PM... It explained that our contracts were supposed to be completed before we began working but they have not yet been printed up... The AAM explained that the reason for this is that GComm are trying to print up an individual contract for every single individual instructor with salary details and conditions printed on to it... Not handwritten or printed on a second bit of paper, and not a generic contract for every single instructor... So no contract yet... The guy from GComm who was there promised us that we were all getting paid from yesterday, though...

We then filled in tax forms, banking details forms and we were offered a salary advance of 50000 yen to be taken against our January 5th paychecks... The AAM had applied for and already received this money... The page also asked us that when we were free we should be meeting and greeting students "with a lot of hospitality and a big smile"... So we sat down and chatted with students for about half the day...

The intro form also talked about making a self introduction poster but there were no materials for said poster so we spent the day trying to look busy and rearranging the Teacher's room...

All in all a day of little to do, and we are already getting paid... Oh well, better get ready for work now...

The last night...

Tonight is my last night with no job... My last night of rest... I didn't have enough money for a real Last Supper though... I am starting to love Cup Noodles...

When I got the call from H. he asked me to bring in my bankbook and stuff as well as a ryoshusho (receipt) from the station to get my first day's travel money back... I guess there will be some documents to sign, maybe a contract or some kind of other banking documents etc.

The best thing is that I am getting text messages from my fellow teachers who are ready willing and able to come to work... All of them are, in part, excited about what our future holds and I assume most of them are bored, poor and a few that live alone are a little bit lonely and looking forward to a little human contact... This all adds up t6o a fun day tomorrow of hanging out with teachers and 8 free lessons...

The problem is that my branch staff have not been called yet and as such are all on their way to the Labor Standards Bureau or whatever those people are called to sort out what to to do about past pay...

I am planning to call them tomorrow to get as much informati0n as possible and I will put what I learn up here...

The purple flash came...

It came! At 5:31 PM I got a phone call from a guy who identified himself as H (all names have been changed to protect the innocent/guilty)... He told me that I have a job at a nearby branch about train about 30 minutes away by train so not too bad I guess even though my old branch was only about 10 minutes away. I have to front up there at 1 on Thursday...

H told me to bring my bankbook, passport and any other relevant documents (wonder what that might mean...) to the branch... He has never been there as he worked in a different area originally, but now it looks like he is coming to our areas, if the area system even stays the same...

Anyway, so it's gone from a predicted long period of further repose to one last day off.... That really sucks balls coz I was planning to get so much more nothing done...

Branch Openings (cancelled)...

Today a branch in the local area, in which some of my friends were slated to work, was slated to be opened... As the teachers waited for 1PM to arrive they got a phone call from the bosses explaining that due to "Technical Reasons" (rumor has it this means that no-one could get their hands on the keys...) the opening
would be postponed...

So all the teachers had been sitting around drinking coffee and decided to go and get drunk... And now we are all a little concerned whether any branches in the area will open...

Oh well back to the grind of watching the Movies that I have planned to watch for a long time... SItting next to a phone, watching the little light on the top to see if it flashes purple... If it flashes blue it's just a text message and I don't think GComm will text me with a new job...

Branch Openings...

(new)NOVA has opened some branches as is displayed in this News story put on Youtube a few days ago (November 14, 2007)...


This is the first branch in Nagoya and was an old EC English conversation school... A different company but the original brand of GComm's Eikaiwa schools...

The report also mentioned the impending opening of more branches in Nagoya as well as Tochigi, and Shizuoka... All of them miles from here, so our wait continues...

I am also getting calls and text messages from concerned instructors worrying about when we will open in our
area a lot of angry people... Angry... Like about to kill people angry... I wish someone had some answers... We have rumors about possible branch openings in the area but no concrete news...

Oh well, I have lots of movies, games and other things to do at almost the same rate as the unemployment
benefit so I will get on with that stuff for now... I hope we have some news soon...

The waiting game...

I have come back from the meeting at Head Office and now sit at home waiting for the news... Will it be good or bad? I have signed all the documents, I left the old NOVA and asked GComm to hire me.. They promised they would. There seemed to be a gap in the information. They said that if the company hired us and there was no school to go to in our area, then we would get paid at 100% of our salary... This seemed too good to be true... Well it both is and isn't, it is because we weren't hired yet on that first day... We have to wait for phone calls, so in the meantime, we are being hired by (old)NOVA, so we get paid 60% of our salary for the waiting time... (the government will only backpay us for 80% of this effectively making t 48% we are eligible for...) It isn't too good to be true in that once (old)NOVA declares bankruptcy, we will all automatically be hired by GComm and get paid the waiting time at 100%...

So now, as always recently, its just a matter of time to wait and see when we get the calls, and when (old)NOVA declares bankruptcy so we can try and get backpay...