[外国人技能実習生機構が「不当労働行為」！？ベトナム人技能実習生らにおきた団結権の侵害に対して、外国人技能講習機構に申し入れを行いました。] 6 April 2022

[Japanese-to-English translation: Business & Human Rights Resource Centre]

We are currently engaged in collective bargaining with the technical training employer over the issue of unfairly coercing Vietnamese technical trainees into resigning. While we are working to resolve this issue, an 'unfair labour practice' by the Organisation of Technical Intern Training (OTIT) has occurred. [...]

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Three union members and others were unfairly coerced into resigning from their technical training employer. [...] The company and the supervisory body [...] did not listen to any of the union members' claims and simply demanded their resignation. [...] The Sendai branch of the OTIT [...] told the three members that "you also have your faults" and asked them to apologise to the company, instructing them to write a letter of apology and send it to the supervisory body. The supervisory body did not even send the letter of apology to the technical training employer and abandoned the issue.

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[...] The members joined us, the Sendai Keyaki Union, to try to resolve the problem and lodged a collective bargaining proposal with the company. Later, the OTIT told the three members of the union [...] "The supervisory body has stated you leaving the union as a condition to discuss returning to work, and I want you all to think about that. You have the option of joining the union after these talks have failed." Subsequently, the OTIT sent an email to each individual to confirm that they had left the union.[...]

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[...] The statement could also be taken as a call for the OTIT to withdraw from the union and discuss the issue with the members, and therefore the OTIT is infringing on the right to organise, which is a fundamental right of workers. In response to the above issues, the Sendai Keyaki Union demanded that the OTIT confirm the facts of the issue, make improvements and transfer the trainees from the company that committed unfair labour practices.

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Negotiations continue with the company on the labour issues of the technical trainees. The company does not accept the fact that trainees were forced to leave unfairly and will not allow them to return to work. On the other hand, the company has acknowledged that there were unpaid wages and says it will pay them. There are also other technical trainees who were victims of damage caused by work-related incidents, and we are negotiating with them to recover from the damage. We will continue to bargain for the rights of the technical trainees.

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[ UPDATE 18 April 2022: Sendai Keyaki Union received a response from the OTIT. The OTIT admits its prior correspondence to trainees was inappropriate, but Sendai Keyaki Union says it fails to apologize and continues to protest.]