Korean Job Discussion Forums

[dairyairy]

Does anyone know the full story? It's not an article but rather is a picture of a protest and here is the link and the caption.

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2013/05/115_135858.html

[Dodge7]

[schwa]

This isnt directly about us (native english speakers). There is a large contingent of Korean contract teachers teaching english in public schools the last couple years & their jobs are on the hook. They're understandably upset.

[Dodge7]

[Julius]

[liveinkorea316]

These days the Provincial offices of education have not been hiring people on full time employment contracts but rather forcing them to get yearly contracts like foreign teachers. It is more flexible for schools and prevents the pension crises and bloated state rolls that exist in other countries since once hired full time a teacher here almost cannot be fired. It's a job for life.

It could have alot to do with demographics because they are elementary and middle school teachers so the bab boom is over here.

Not sure why just English conversation though...I heard this is affecting most majors.

[Mix1]

[maximmm]

In my elementary school, out of 3 co-teachers, one was a contract based teacher. She was not a certified elementary school teacher, but rather a conversational English teacher (though she did work as an English teacher in a hagwon for a number of years prior to this gig). In order to be hired as such, she had to pass some sort of special test a few years ago and that gave her, and other people that passed the test, the right to be hired in a public school for 5 years as an English teacher.

I suppose it's possible that the government has negated on that 5-year promise?

I'm not sure what it means... contract based teachers were cheaper than the elementary school certified teachers (and their English skill is often superior to that of the certified elementary school teachers).

I suppose it may be that it's not as much of a financial issue as the fact that the government wants all certified public school teachers to be proficient in English?

It could also be something else. I recall that there was a bit of a conflict between some teachers - since some certified elementary school teachers felt that the contract based teachers were making a move on their turf (in my school one co-teacher, who was also the head of the English department at that time, kept reminding me that the contract based teacher was not a 'real' teacher and was pretty much inferior (blood... not as pure?^^)). It's funny, because the contract-based teacher was actually pretty good at her job - and when I told her what the other co-teacher said - the conflict escalated. Yep.... things haven't been the same ever since @@

[dairyairy]

[Unposter]

I don't know the full story but here is something:

A handfull of years ago, a law was passed (supposedly to protect workers) which said that if you employed someone for X number of years, they automatically became what is called a full-time employee and they had to have full benefits and it was much harder to fire the employee.

The result has been that a number of employees are fired before they reach the legal limit to be considered "permanent or regular" employees.

These teachers were hired and now they are about to be fired because their respective employers don't want them to be given "regular worker" status.

These teachers don't like it, so they are protesting. I don't know about teachers but there have been numerous protests over such firings in other fields in Korea and protesting this issue is nothing new (nor are such firings).

The result is that these non-regular workers float from job to job only to be fired after a few years, thus prevented from ever having full benefits.

As for free lunches (Seoul only by the way), it is my understanding that that would be a completely different part of the budget and it would not be an issue here.

This is simply an issue of schools not wanting to deal with the legal protections that come with being a "regular" worker.

It is also my understanding that unless you are under an F-visa, this law is not applicable to FTs so it probably doesn't affect most FTs.

[waynehead]

Yup. I'm on my fourth contract at my public school, and there are several Korean teachers (both English and other subjects) who've been here for nearly as long as I have without getting tenure. It seems schools are pinching their pennies by relying more and more on yearly contracted teachers, just like us waegs.

[dairyairy]

You could right about the full-time versus temporary issue. The Korean teacher's unions never seem to do much about workplace issues like this, or any others. But bring up North Korea and they swing into action. It makes you wonder why anyone would want to join those unions, in the first place.

[hiamnotcool]

[Julius]

[Stan Rogers]

Before long every worker in Korea, foreign or Korean will be a contract worker.