Nominated and seconded by:
Gregory Clark; Masuhiko Hirobuchi

To be honest, I didn’t want to run for office anymore. The atmosphere at our Club has dramatically deteriorated in the last few years -- and not only from a financial and management point of view. There is a clear “fascist” undercurrent -- and please, as an Italian who knows what fascism means, allow me to use this word.

Club members who express dissenting views are been attacked verbally and derided. Last month during a special Board Meeting devoted to our current HR crisis, three members of the Board, including incumbent 2nd VP and 1st VP candidate James Simms, walked out when I was given the opportunity by President Makino to speak.

Last year, one outspoken “critic,” a Life Member, was suspended for six months. Over 5 million yen in members’ money was spent in non-budgeted legal fees to keep him out of the Club. Then a special committee eventually exonerated him of all allegations. Yet the Board refuses to issue a formal apology.

For these reasons I had decided not to run for office anymore. Then this spring, the Club found itself in the worst management crisis in its 64-year history. Imagine, FCCJ employees threatening to go out on strike.

Let me state very clearly that the cause of this crisis doesn’t lie with our staff, nor, at least not entirely, with our General Manager. A big responsibility lies with past and present Boards. Some of you who have been around for a long time, may remember that back in 2001, when I first was elected 2nd VP, I and my HR Committee found out that our Club was not in legal compliance.

Not only we were abusing unpaid “overtime work,” we had not duly “stabilized” some employees who had been working for us for decades.

It took a few years, but eventually, under Anthony Rowley’s presidency (by far the most efficient and productive of recent years) a comprehensive HR Reform Plan was adopted and approved by the Board and GMM.

Unfortunately, it was not fully implemented. In April 2008, during Martyn Williams’ presidency, then-AGM Nakamura, in full cooperation with the HR Committee and with input from professional HR experts, drafted a detailed “reorganizational plan” that would have put us in almost perfect legal compliance and enormously helped the new GM in his work.

Unfortunately, the plan was rejected: the Board, in a very close vote (5 to 4) resolved to postpone it until the new GM would be sworn in. That was an enormous mistake. Since last July, when our new GM assumed his duties, there’s been virtually no oversight by our 2nd Vice President and his HR “committee” (consisting of himself and the 1st Vice President, Tim Kelly). As a result, the GM, who can’t speak proper Japanese and is clearly not aware of Japanese laws and regulations, ended up commiting a lot of mistakes.

In the meantime, staff threatened to go on strike on Wednesday, June 10, the day of our General Membership Meeting. Only a last-minute, very passionate appeal by our President convinced them to “temporarily” call off the strike.

During that meeting the day before the GMM, our 1st and 2nd Vice Presidents (Tim Kelly and James Simms) didn’t show up.

Note that while the General Membership passed a resolution strongly criticical of the GM’s performance, it may not be enough. Over 80 percent of employees have demanded his dismissal. In other words, he’s lost their trust completely. This is a fact, and if elected, I sincerely believe I can positively influence the outcome of the present dispute and work toward restoring good and trusting relations among our hardworking staff and the management.

I want to end this statement on a positive note. While I did not agree with many of his decisions when he was President – namely the closing of the Freedom of the Press forum – I am sure that if my opponent, Dennis Normile, wins, he will also do his best to restore mutual trust between the staff and the management. I still remember when, several years ago, he publicly congratulated me for my HR policies, declariing his full support. I hope that if elected, he too will pursue fairness, legal compliance and humanity.