Japan Press Weekly

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2013 November 6 - 12 [LABOR]

Professors in court urge university to pay unpaid wages

Fukui University teachers on November 11 filed a suit at the Fukui District Court, calling on the university to pay unpaid wages to them.

The plaintiffs are 13 teachers and staff of Fukui University. They demand that their employer pay them 13.14 million yen in total as unpaid wages and retirement benefits. This is the 9th lawsuit of this kind, according to the Faculty and Staff Union of Japanese Universities.

Due to the government’s 2004 decision to transform national universities into independent administrative entities, national universities’ employees lost their status as national public servants. The national government, however, demands that the universities reduce their employees’ wages in accordance with its salary cuts for national public workers.

At a press conference held on the same day, Professor Yamane Kiyoshi heading the plaintiffs’ group said that pay rates “should be determined through negotiations and consensus between labor and management.” He criticized Fukui University for unilaterally changing work rules in violation of the Labor Contract Law.

A written complaint they submitted to the court stresses that this case is to question the national government’s cuts in budgets for higher education and universities’ failure to stand up against it.