Teacher Discussion Forums

[janecorf]

We are a couple teachers who came to Korea to find a nice school and good pay, we thought we found an excellent school and were hapily teaching and having fun for three weeks, we were then told that the school had a new director but the school name working conditions etc would remain the same, within the two months the school gradually changed everything, including the school name. we signed a contract with the new director which was exactly the same as the old contract, including the school name. The school name isn't even the same anymore, are we working legally?

The director despite saying 'no changes' has changed the school name and the school is now a popular franchise, he has increased our 'unpaid' work. We asked for a new contract and slight increase in pay due to the extra work and the fact that our contract is under a different school name. We thought it would be fair to make a new agreement of work conditions as we were now working for a different school with a lot more extra work. He made loads of excuses why he couldn't, shouted at all the teachers then eventually when we threatened to leave if it wasn't sorted
he presented us with a ridiculous contract that included phone teaching, prep work, weekend work unpaid and compulsory, extra activities, less time for lunch. He has offered us 2.0 million instead of 1.9 for the phone teaching which we think (due to what we read about phone teaching) is unreasonable. The new contract is open ended hours and work for no extra pay and states that severance pay is discretionary, the phone teaching is also open ended. We also have to pay him money 20,000 if we're off work due to 'personal reasons', the list is endless. We are going to refuse to sign the new contract but are in a bad situation now and really need some advice as to what to do. We don't even know if we left if we would get a letter of release as we don't know if anything is actually legal. Our old contract states our working hours, lunch break, optional weekend work paid as overtime. We have a meeting on tuesday in which the director is expecting us to sign this ridiculous contract. Any advice would be much appreciated. We are very confused as to what to do. We came to Korea (paid for our own flight etc to find a good school and everything is going wrong. Please help!!

[Lorikeet]

It sounds like you have a real problem, but I'm not sure this Forum will get you the advice you need, since it is the "English for Special Purposes" Forum (English for construction workers, for medical workers, for food service workers, etc.). There is a "Korean Jobs Forum" on this website that might be more helpful. You can access it at http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/korea/

[Dodger]

Good luck in Korea, janecorf.