September 18, 2021

Akahata reported on September 18 that pushed by trade union’s efforts and the Japanese Communist Party’s Diet questioning, Osaka University announced its plan to offer direct employment to contract lecturers.

This plan will be applied to non-regular lecturers working under service contracts with Osaka University. Under the contract, they are required to give grades to students.

The University Part-Time Lecturers Union Kansai, a union organizing non-regular lecturers at Osaka University and other universities in the Kansai Region, has argued that Osaka University illegally orders contract lecturers to assess grades for students and demanded that the university change these workers’ contracts to direct employment contracts.

Regarding the university’s latest announcement, union leader Shinyashiki Takeshi said, “We appreciate the university expressing its intent to conclude employment contracts with part-time lecturers working under service contracts.”

JCP member of the House of Representatives Miyamoto Toru in June at a Diet meeting pointed out that Osaka University’s act of using lecturers, whose jobs include an academic assessment, under service contracts or mandate contracts is legally prohibited.

In reply, an Education Ministry official said that the ministry will instruct the university to take appropriate measures based on the investigation results.