(1) Reporting of deadlines

The plaintiff has submitted the seventh brief.

During the hearing, we submitted statements from the plaintiff union members Mary Hanson Daggerty and Anthony Dolan and requested to call witnesses.

However, during the hearing, the judge contacted us and asked us to consider substituting a statement of opinion instead, as he was unsure whether there was any need for witness questioning.

As a result of these circumstances, Mary made a statement today on behalf of the union members (witness testimony was denied). The manuscript of the statement (in both Japanese and English) has been uploaded as a "litigation document," so please take a look.

The verdict will be announced on Thursday, January 29th at 1:10pm at the 5:30pm joint courtroom .

(2) Report on the post-date briefing session

A report meeting was held on the 5th floor of the Bar Association Building from 11:30 a.m., where a review of the lawsuits to date was conducted.

A. I will summarize the report from the defense team.

The lawsuit concluded today, but the plaintiff and defendant's arguments did not reconcile until the very end.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government has consistently maintained that it is "simply enforcing what is stipulated by law." Despite the fact that "public officials have the obligation to respect and uphold this Constitution" (Article 99 of the Constitution), in this case as well as others, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government has consistently avoided constitutional issues and continues to claim that it bears no responsibility for enforcing laws that violate the Constitution.

What Mary's statement made clear was that she had been passionately teaching English to students for 20 years since the founding of Roka High School, but she was suddenly placed in a position where she had no basic labor rights without ever being held accountable. When the vice principal explained the situation to her, she was only given a single A4 sheet of paper with an English translation on the back. There was no explanation of basic labor rights whatsoever.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government claimed that it had provided the compensation to special-duty part-time employees and explained the compensation measures. While the compensation documents do contain the words "request for review" and "request for measures," they only mentioned these briefly. However, no such explanation was given to ALTs.

It is not possible that private sector workers, as described above, would suddenly be unable to engage in collective bargaining one day. It is also not possible that what is not permitted for private companies to do to their workers would be permitted for the national and local governments to do to public servants .

Attorney Yamada, a member of the defense team, says he was shocked when he took a class at university about 50 years ago and was taught that "administrative law is the law of domination and obedience." In the 21st century, civil servants should not be told to obey the state even if their labor rights are violated, but it seems that the administrative practices of this country still position the relationship between the state and its people as one of domination and obedience.

The court has said it will take three months to write the judgment, and since it is taking this long, I hope that it will take the time to write a good judgment that takes into consideration the rights of workers .

B. Comments from participants

In this case, we have submitted as evidence a number of administrative documents disclosed by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, and this report meeting was also attended by people who have patiently cooperated with these requests for disclosure of information.

A person who provided information about the recent legal reform to the International Labor Organization (ILO) Committee of Experts requested that the Tozen Union, the plaintiff in this case, report to the ILO on the trial and its results, and the plaintiff responded that they would definitely do so.

Plaintiff has filed the sixth preparatory brief.

The following is what they claim:

(1) The requests for measures and requests for review made by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government to the Personnel Commission and the Fairness Commission as compensatory measures do not actually function as compensatory measures for the restriction of fundamental labor rights.

(2) On the other hand, the Labor Relations Commission has played an important role in exercising the fundamental labor rights of special-class non-regular employees (the status of the plaintiffs’ union members before the legal amendment changed them to fiscal year employees).

The next oral argument, the 8th session, is scheduled to be held on Thursday, October 23rd at 11:00 a.m.

Both the plaintiff and the defendant (Tokyo Metropolitan Government) plan to file rebuttals and supplementary arguments.

The ministry said it did not plan any further rebuttals.

It is highly likely that the case will be concluded at the next hearing.

The next press briefing may take place after the date (in the afternoon). We will let you know once the details have been decided.

On September 13, 2024, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, a participating administrative agency, submitted a preparatory document (1). In the document, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications explained the purpose and outline of the revised Local Public Service Act, and then explained that, as a result of the revised law, special-duty part-time employees were appointed as fiscal year-appointed employees, and as a result lost the right to organize and the right to collective bargaining. The ministry rephrased the "deprivation" of basic labor rights as a "change in the nature" of the situation, stating that "these people should not have been appointed as special-duty part-time employees in the first place, and the revision has simply brought them into line with the situation originally envisaged by the pre-revision Local Public Service Act." Furthermore, the response to our request for clarification was insufficient.

Therefore, on November 19, 2024, we (the plaintiffs) submitted the Fourth Preparatory Document, pointing out that the revised law did not take into account the "principles of the operation of public service" (Fourth Preparatory Document, Section 1), while reaffirming that the revision "deprived" former special-class non-regular employees of their basic labor rights and thus violates Article 28 of the Constitution (Fourth Preparatory Document, Section 2), and requesting further clarification on points where the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications' responses were insufficient or unclear (Fourth Preparatory Document, Section 3).

At the progress consultation hearing on November 25, 2024, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications was reluctant to respond, stating that "we do not feel the need to respond to the explanation." However, the court asked the Ministry to make the necessary arguments, especially regarding compensatory measures, and the Ministry was required to submit a preparatory document and refute the request by February 17, 2025.

In addition, this lawsuit has been moving forward through progress consultation sessions since January 25th of this year, but at today's session, we informed the court that we would like it to consider returning to oral argument from the session after next.

The second oral argument was held on September 28th at 10:00 a.m., and the plaintiff made a statement in the first preliminary document.

The first preliminary document outlines the following claims.

Article 8 of the Constitution shows that even though the collective bargaining rights of fiscal year appointed employees were infringed upon by being incorporated into regular positions, the Land Public Service Law did not take any measures to eliminate the disadvantage. This is in violation of the Articles.

In other words, for fiscal year-appointed employees, (1) it used to be possible to conduct collective bargaining and conclude a collective agreement, but with the revision of the Land Public Corporations Act, the right to conclude a collective agreement has been taken away; (2) Even if a written agreement is concluded as a result (Article 55, Paragraph 9 of the Local Public Corporations Act), the agreement is not legally binding, and it is simply a matter of good faith and responsibility on the part of both local government authorities and employee organizations. (Article 55, Paragraph 10 of the Land Public Service Law), Article 58, Paragraph 1 of the Land Public Service Law deprives fiscal year appointed employees of the right to conclude collective agreements without taking any alternative measures. It violates Article 28 of the Constitution and is invalid.

Therefore, the Tokyo Metropolitan Labor Relations Commission's decision that the plaintiff was ineligible to apply for relief to the Labor Relations Commission because of the change in the application of the Land and Public Corporation Law is seriously flawed and should be rescinded.

The defendant is scheduled to make a rebuttal to the plaintiff's claim at the next hearing.

The right to collective bargaining and the right to conclude collective agreements is an important means for fiscal year-appointed employees, who are placed in precarious positions, to seek job security. We appreciate your continued support.

On the date of the first oral argument, after the statement of the complaint and written answer, Mr. Kiyomi Okunuki, chairman of the executive committee of the plaintiff, and Ms. Kiyoko Ayukawa of the same ALT branch, made statements of opinion.

 Ms. Okunuki (Overview)

 “Until we switched to the fiscal year appointment staff system, we had continued collective bargaining with the Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education (Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education). That all changed in July 2020. proposed collective bargaining on issues such as measures against the coronavirus at schools, but the board of education refused the collective bargaining on the grounds that the labor union law did not apply to employees appointed during the fiscal year. I refused the offer from, and now I can't even talk about it.

 The ALT branch was greatly shocked by the sudden turn of events. Of course, as a representative myself, I could not understand why this kind of thing was allowed. Even after the introduction of the fiscal year appointment staff system, nothing has changed in the work environment and work content from when I was a "special part-time employee" according to Article 3, Paragraph 3 of the Local Public Service Act. The only thing that has changed is that the right to operate as a trade union has been completely taken away.

 Now that labor unions have been deprived of the means to conduct collective bargaining, it can be said that the fiscal year-appointed staff are forced to unconditionally accept all conditions, regulations, and rules from the Tokyo Board of Education and schools. They are forced to make the ultimate choice: accept the conditions unilaterally presented to them, or refuse to accept them and lose their jobs. Clearly, this is not a healthy labor relationship. ”

 Ms. Ayukawa  (Overview)

 "The work that ALTs do has not changed at all between when they were 'special non-regular staff members' and after they became 'fiscal year appointment staff members. i have the same job. When the system changed, I had absolutely no other choice, and in order to continue working as an ALT, I had no choice but to become a fiscal year appointment staff.

 ALTs are completely different from "regular civil servants," who have low salaries, no status guarantees, and are guaranteed a stable status. ALTs in such an unstable and vulnerable position are unable to negotiate with their employers alone when problems arise in their work. In solidarity, we need to negotiate with employers for better status and better working conditions. Until now, the Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education has responded to requests for collective bargaining from our union precisely because it had an obligation to comply with collective bargaining. And yet, suddenly, the protective union activity was taken away. The constitutional rights given to workers were suddenly taken away. Is this allowed? (Omitted)

 ALTs need the three labor rights. We have filed this lawsuit to restore the unreasonably deprived rights. Please make a fair judgment. ”

 After the date, we held a debriefing meeting at Hibiya Park.

 On the next oral argument dates, we plan to deepen our discussions on specific issues related to the Tokyo Labor Relations Commission's decision.

 Thank you for your continued support.