ASA
From Eikaiwa Wiki
ASA was a unique case. Instead of winding up its business in a responsible manner, it bitterly hung on continuing to operate a few branches even while hoards of teachers protested outside. According to several newspaper articles in 1993 and 1994, the school owed ¥120 million to as many as 250 foreign teachers and Japanese staff. Since then the parent company, Asahi Sankyo, and the school officially went bankrupt. However, soon after the so-called bankruptcy ASA Community Salon reemerged as a "new" school. When teachers contacted ASA to ask about the unpaid wages, the school's reply was that "under the bankruptcy laws we are no longer responsible for unpaid wages of the previous company."
Contents |
Analysis of the bankruptcy
Reports of the bankruptcy
Services
Employment
Personal accounts
When I first arrived in Japan, too many years ago than I care to remember, I worked for a rather large English conversation school here in Tokyo that was in deep financial trouble. It was going bankrupt. There was no doubt about it.
First our pay was one day late. The next month, two days late. The company's management seemed to really care and so as teachers we didn't mind all that much. Then our pay was four days late. The next month? Eight days. Then sixteen. Next, more than a month. Finally, two and then three months. This carried on more than a year. Still, our school paid much more than the other schools and so we stuck with them. We had pride in our school and believe in the teaching methodology. Our company made no attempt to lower our salaries, paid more than other schools when they were able to pay, and seemed honest at the time.
But very soon, some teachers who had done a lot of overtime and were owed close to a million yen or more. The Japanese government would reimbursed the lack of payment of wages, but they would only reimburse up to 70% of what was owed, if I remember correctly. There was also an upper limit of a million yen I believe, and so many teachers were not willing to continue working if they were most likely never to receive any payment at all for it, if the school went under. A line had to be drawn somewhere and that was it.
Finally, as teachers we organized a union and went on strike, as we couldn't wait for the Japanese courts. We tried to force them to close, shutting down all eight schools that the company had overnight. Guess what? It didn't work. They simply hired new teachers, fresh off the plane that were desperate for money, and offered cash on the day if they would cross the picket line and work. Some did. Enough of them to keep one of the schools open at least. Despite our picketing everyday and lots of bad press, they avoided bankruptcy.
Finally, unable to keep even their former headquarters open probably because of its size and cost of rent on the west side of Shinjuku station, they simply opened up a smaller school somewhere else. This went on for years! That is right. YEARS!! No money from the unemployment insurance. No payment of our salaries. We had to find other work just to survive. We needed money to live, our working visas were going to expire sooner or later, and we had to continue to picket on our days off.
Can you see the picture I am painting? As time wore on teachers were not being paid and the company just plain refused declare bankruptcy. This should be a real concern to all of you here. If the company does not go bankrupt, you cannot claim unemployment. In our case it was basically impossible to force them to pay us our salaries. Sure they were warned by the government to pay us, but as they didn't have any money it didn't do any good. A few foreign embassies even wrote letters on our behalf but it was of no help. Likewise, going to court was an option which we pursued, but in the end it took close to five years for the court to reach a decision while we were running seriously short of money.
Like many Nova teachers today, many of us back then were living in company housing. In our case, the building wasn't rented, our company owned it. However, as they were running out of money and banks refused to loan them any more money, our company turned to a money lending company instead. Of course, that just made things worse, as when they couldn't pay back their new loans at a higher interest rate, the money lending company decided to take our company's property instead.
Very soon, we had some very undesirable thugs take over our building. They moved into a small office on the first floor and they would watch everyone come and go. I wouldn't go so far as to call them Yakuza per se, but yes, they were hired muscle that were there to scare us out. We teachers of course did not want to move out of our company housing as at the very least, if we didn't get our salaries then we would still have a place to stay.
Then things got nasty. These thugs started demanding that we sign new leases and pay them directly, despite the fact that our rent was supposedly being taken out of our pay each month. Locks were suddenly changed by the thugs, the police were called, our company executives were there, irate teachers, along with a lot of tough Japanese thugs threatening to throw us out into the street. Lots of yelling and shouting. In my apartment we kept a baseball bat near the door just in case. It was not a nice situation at all.
I've seen a Japanese English conversation school try to avoid going bankrupt first hand before. It was hell. It was a long drawn out process in our case. Only many years later did any teachers, and only a few of them that stuck it out for years through many court hearings and after paying years of union fees, finally get some of their money from the company through the court system.
As for me? I was until very recently a Nova employee. I applied for my paid holidays immediately after our pay was 12 hours later than usual. I then handed in my resignation soon after that. I learned my lesson years ago and I vowed never to go through that again. This time I wanted to get out when I was still likely to get what I was owed.
I know that some companies go bankrupt overnight, but the fact is, others don't. In my experience, when a company goes bankrupt everyone involved suffers a financial loss. That is the moral of my little story and a lesson I learned the hard way. I am only offering it here in the hope that you don't have to go through what I went through.
