January 21, 2011

The Tokyo Labor Relations Commission on January 14 ruled that giving unionized teachers lower wages than their coworkers is an unfair labor practice and ordered the school in question to make amends.

Those who filed complaints to the commission are Mori Hiroko, Terajima Yae and Yaguchi Yukiko of the private high school of Shoin Gakuen in Tokyo.

In 2007, the Central Labor Relations Commission ordered the school to redress wage discrimination against the union teachers. The school filed a lawsuit against the order, but lost the case in 2009.

The Tokyo Labor Relations Commission recognized that the school kept the three teachers’ salaries and bonuses low based on its discrimination against members of a teachers’ union, and ordered the school to pay the difference.

Mori, chairperson of the teachers’ union, said, “Our wages at Shoin Gakuen are at the lowest level among private schools in Tokyo. We will make efforts to eliminate the discrimination against union members and to have the issue fully resolved.”

For the past three decades, 14 orders and judicial rulings were issued against the school’s unfair labor practices.