Job Discussion Forums

[Flo]

I am living in Peru and working for an extremely disorganized University in the northern part of the country. I have finally purchased my plane ticket out of here. My employer is supposed to pay me for my last month salary and my plane ticket, so I have to submit my paperwork now, and hopefully I will get my money before I leave in July.

Here is the stupid part. My employer paid for my work visa last year, which involved travelling to the consulate office in Ecuador, reentering Peru, and then sending my passport to Lima for more than 2 months. During this time I could not travel anywhere. Now, my boss wants to send my visa back to Lima to have my work visa "cancelled". Does this sound like non-sense to anyone? My family is visiting me and we are supposed to go to Boliva. If my passport is in Lima, I cannot travel with them. I asked my employer if I can go to Lima myself with my passport to have the Visa, and they said, "absolutely not". I have also tried to contact the embassy or immigration office via e-mail but cannot find an e-mail address for either of them. In addition to all of this, one of my friends who used to work for this institution gave them her passport 3 months ago for the same reason, and she has not seen it since. I think this is an excuse the school is using so they won�t have to pay me my money.

Any similar experience? What do you think? Is this legal (even in Peru)?

[moonraven]

Unless Peru is very different from most countries--and I do not believe it is--you do not need to go through the process you indicated they told you was necessary. If you want to turn in your work visa to immigration at the airport when you leave, they should take care of it. At this point, as things are clearly dicey between you and your employer, do not surrender your passport for any reason.