For the Students

Cutting the education budget is bad for children. Their futures depend on quality education.

Spending this money on the meaningless illumination of an already well-lit street is not a good use of public money.

Around April 1, 2008, our foolish, young, recently elected Governor HASHIMOTO Tooru recommended the firing of 350 part-time employees and the reduction in pay of over 50,000 teachers and over 20,000 police. Yes...you read that correctly...more than 70,350 public security and education workers are seriously affected!

The reason is that Osaka has serious debt. The question is, "Why should people so important to the community and to social welfare be forced to pay for bad government decisions and "white elephant" building projects?"

The 350 staff cut is particularly terrible because these workers are a small but essential link in the support of our schools. They are the librarians and support staff for school science laboratories, home economics, foreign language, cleaning staff, and para-teacher support. Truly, our teachers cannot imagine functioning well without these critical people.

Native English teachers are being asked to take a 145,440 yen per year (approx. 1500 US$) pay cut when we are already the lowest paid teachers who have not received a pay raise in 11 years, and receive no bonus or retirement benefits or special benefits of any kind. Many of us have families and many have over ten years of teaching experience in Japan with advanced education degrees.

On July 14 to July 15th, OFSET Teachers Union organized a 24-hour Suwarikomi (sit-down strike) in Osaka Jo Koen, the park in front of the Osaka-Prefecture government building.

We started with a press conference at 3:00 on July 14th. The media response was good. We received excellent TV press and print coverage.

Our evening concert, "For the Students" enjoyed the participation of wonderful Osaka musicians. The music drew attention to this serious public issue.

Several members spent the night under the stars and started a warm July 15th morning by collecting 100's of signatures.

Every single person who signed the petition asked Gov. Hashimoto to not cut education.




Every single person who signed the petition asked the Governor to not spend 300,000,000 yen per year (approx. 3,000,000 US$) on his own "white elephant" project, the illumination of the already well-lit Midosuji Boulevard.

Throughout the day we supported a demonstration in front of the Osaka Prefecture and prepared for our final press conference at 3:00 on July 15th.

We finished with a formal negotiation with the Board of Education. Unfortunately, the BOE seems to lack the will power to challenge the Governors' bad decisions.

It is a difficult time to be a foreign English teacher in Japan.

For more information, please contact us through www.OFSETUnion.org.

Solidarity,
Steven Thompson. OFSET General Secretary

Category:

News & Politics

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• OFSET
• students
• Union
• union
• teachers
• Hashimoto
• Osaka
• Fu
• Japan