This file photo shows a building that houses the Tokyo District Court in the capital's Chiyoda Ward. (Mainichi/Kazuo Motohashi)

       TOKYO -- Three foreign instructors with fixed-term contracts at Kanda University of International Studies filed for labor tribunal proceedings in the Tokyo District Court on Dec. 20, seeking confirmation of their status as being employed without fixed terms.

       The three instructors at the university in the city of Chiba east of Tokyo say they have passed the legally defined employment period after which they have the right to apply for indefinite-term employment contracts.

       According to the claim filed by the teachers and the Zenkoku Ippan Tokyo General Union to which they belong, the three signed two-year employment contracts with the university to work as English instructors and learning advisers. Their contracts were renewed twice (for a total employment period of six years), and this year they marked their fifth year of employment at the university.

       Japan's Labor Contract Act states that a worker on a fixed-term contract who has worked with the same employer for five years has the right to switch to a labor contract without a fixed term, and the three instructors applied for such contracts.

       The university contends that it introduced internal regulations in 2017 based on application of the office term law for university teachers and other workers, which sets a fixed-term employment period of 10 years, and informed the three that they didn't have the right to switch to contracts without fixed terms.

       The plaintiffs, however, argue that the university bylaws were created later, and that they received no such explanation when their contracts were renewed.

       Shoichi Ibusuki, a lawyer representing the instructors, commented, "We want to question whether application of the office term law to language teachers is appropriate, and whether the regulations made partway through their contracts can be retroactively applied."

       A representative of the university's general affairs division said they had not seen the motion filed by the instructors and could not comment.

       (Japanese original by Satoshi Tokairin, Tokyo City News Department)

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