Job Discussion Forums

[HystericalHoosier]

Teachers thinking of teaching at KSU through the recruiter ICEAT should be aware of pending litigation and a corruption investigation involving the university and its recruiter for forcing teachers to work in KSA illegally. The pending cases could result in ICEAT losing their government contracts. As a result many of these teachers will be barred from working in KSA in the future.

[veiledsentiments]

[HystericalHoosier]

One of the teachers has already been put on the blacklist as the company failed to process her visa in a timely matter. There is also an inquiry into how the teachers are renewing visa without ever leaving the country.

There is to be a hearing concerning the matter at the ministry of labor on Saturday. This is the third time the hearing has been scheduled. One of the remedies the judge can order is to cancel the companies government contracts. ICEAT has been ordered by the police to appear after twice failing to show. More to come.

[nomad soul]

[veiledsentiments]

What "blacklist" would this be? Being late on a visa is not a major crime... merely a fine. Or perhaps a restriction for a year or two which has supposedly been done away with due to the new laws on NOCs.

They aren't all that efficient to be honest. She can likely do as people have done for years with the KSA rules... "wash your passport." Although I've never quite understood why one would want to return.

VS

[HystericalHoosier]

[i]I'm not sure what you mean by "forcing" teachers to work illegally. The teachers came willingly on these business visit visas and once they realized they weren't getting the required iqama/work permit, they simply could have left the country. Ignorance of the law is never a good defense. By the way, where are you getting your information?
[/i]

Many teachers were flown into third countries with no visa being told that they would get their work visa there. However the work visa never comes. While they are not chained to a bed like a sex slave in some BBC special, once you have given up a job and are stuck in the magic kingdom with no ticket home, many people are financially chain to the job at least for some time. Passports have to be turned in every thirty days for about a week leaving you a virtual prisoner in your room. The case at the Labor ministry is a matter of public record and hopefully it will get some news coverage.

[Captain Willard]

To whom will ICEAT lose their contracts?

EdEx?

EdEx brings teachers in to KSU on work visit visas all the time. Renewals are sent to Jordan for a few days.

EdEx must have some wasta to escape investigation considering the criminal past of the Western face of the company-"Dr. Harvey Wallbanger". (Not his real name.)

[veiledsentiments]

[Kornan DeKobb]

^ They're playing the odds. Lots of people work on work-visit visas a long time, sometimes an entire contract, without ever having any problems, but yes, it is a roll of the dice.

Actually, I kinda wished I didn't have an Iqama. Those on work visit visas were free to leave at any time while I required permission, and then it would be only for a single exit-re-entry visa, not the multiple which would have given the same freedom

[HystericalHoosier]

[quote]And right here is the problem. If only people would check here before accepting something like this. Anyone here could have told them that they are NOT getting a legal work visa, nor can what they get ever be turned into a legal visa.

People have to take some responsibility for not taking the time to learn what they are getting into. With the internet, there is no excuse for their not checking things out.
[/quote]

It seems like you are blaming the victim. Most people who get caught up in fraud know about fraud, that doesn't excuse criminal acts. The plain fact is that KSA through these recruiters are violating the laws of the countries where they are recruiting and subject to their laws. Considering that the kingdom owes its very existence to these countries at the very least it seems a bit tacky.

[johnslat]

Dear HystericalHoosier,

Sometimes blaming the victim as well makes sense, I'd say:

"Sometimes Blaming the Victim Makes Sense

This isn't just a point about the correctional system. It's a point about the whole array of public social service institutions in this country. When something goes wrong, our first assumption is that the institution has failed its clients. To believe anything else would mean "blaming the victim," which virtually everyone in public life these days has been taught to believe is a sin. Sometimes it is a sin- -sometimes the rules and the management are the fundamental problem. It doesn't make much sense to blame squalid conditions at a public hospital on the conduct of the patients. They are sick. The hospital is supposed to take care of them.
My rebuttal is this: If, in our distaste for blaming the victim, we treat public institutions as the automatic culprit of first resort, there are many social problems in 21st-century America we will never understand. The consumer of any social service is entitled to justice and respect. He isn't entitled to a free ride.
Occasionally, in a mischievous mood, I start a conversation by asking why editorial writers and commentators keep saying over and over again that our schools are failing their students. Why not the other way around? Why doesn't anybody argue that when test scores rank near the bottom, it's the pupils who are letting the schools down? I'm always careful to smile when I say this. If I appear to be serious, I would quickly get a reputation as a Lester Maddox know-nothing: "If these kids can't do the job, let's get 'em the hell out of there and find some who can."
Maybe you laughed at that one, too. But I didn't mean it entirely as a joke. What are kids supposed to believe when they go from kindergarten all the way through 12th grade hearing incessantly that the teachers have a sacred responsibility to educate them, and that if a high school keeps graduating people who can't read very well, it ought to be closed down? I'm pretty sure what I'd believe: that I was little more than a passive receptacle for knowledge, and that if I came out empty, it was somebody else's fault--not mine.
Bizarre as it may sound now, common opinion in America for much of the 20th century held the educational process to be a mutual enterprise for which school and student both held some responsibility. Test scores, of course, varied enormously from one area to another. Kids who lived in affluent suburbs tested well. Kids who came from the wrong side of the tracks tested badly. Everyone expected that. No school system could be asked to assume 100 percent responsibility for overcoming the burden of demographics.
The rules of demographics have not been repealed in the decades since then. We just choose to ignore them, and to assume that if a school deep in the inner city turns in consistently low test scores, that's the fault of someone in the educational system: a bad teacher, an incompetent administrator, a greedy union boss, a lazy bureaucrat down at headquarters."

http://www.governing.com/topics/mgmt/Sometimes-Blaming-Victim-Makes-Sense.html

Regards,
John

[veiledsentiments]

[HystericalHoosier]

I kinda feel there are two trains passing in the night I was giving a heads up that there was a hearing being held and a corruption investigation going. I have no idea if it will come to anything. I don't remember blaming any public institute except the parties to the contract. Do John and Veil argue that the university and their recruiters are not in breach of contract if they don't provide visas or pay monies owed. Most of the teachers were not recruited in KSA but in their home countries which makes the parties subject to the laws of that country. The rule of law mandates that when you make specific promises and people act on those promises (by getting on a plane), you are bound by those promises and are liable for any damages arising from the breach of those promises.

But this gets to the point that we aren't dealing with a country which operates by the rule of law. While it may be true that if you can't take it, don't come here, when schools here pull these stunts, the fact should be hammered home to our elected officials back home. While I don't ascribe to the sentiments of my Ranger friends of "Kill them all, let God sort it out" I would say we shouldn't treat KSA any differently than Libya or Yemen. Certainly they should be treated the same as any other sleazy business operation you find operating in your community.

[johnslat]

Dear HystericalHoosier;


"Do John and Veil argue that the university and their recruiters are not in breach of contract if they don't provide visas or pay monies owed."

Perhaps you missed these words (in bold here).


Sometimes blaming the victim as well makes sense, I'd say:

And I very much doubt that this is always true:

"Most of the teachers were not recruited in KSA but in their home countries which makes the parties subject to the laws of that country."


If the recruiting/contracting company is headquartered in the US or other "Western" countires. then I imagine it is true, but some recruiters /contractors (e.g. M-trading) are not.

I'm completely in agreement with this, though:

"But this gets to the point that we aren't dealing with a country which operates by the rule of law."

And while I do rather admire your idealism:

" . . . when schools here pull these stunts, the fact should be hammered home to our elected officials back home. While I don't ascribe to the sentiments of my Ranger friends of "Kill them all, let God sort it out" I would say we shouldn't treat KSA any differently than Libya or Yemen. Certainly they should be treated the same as any other sleazy business operation you find operating in your community."

I wouldn't advise anyone to hold his/her breath waiting for that to happen.

Regards,
Cynical John

[Grendal]

Dear hysterical: KSA and KSU, sometimes I read KSA and assume you mean KSU.

In a related matter as to job security/danger. Some colleagues of mine went off to Baghdad to teach IE to the newly formed Iraqi military. They were getting 10,000 US a month while they were in the Green Zone. I was thinking that they'd need that money later perhaps for cancer treatment due to the amount of depleted uranium in the area.

Grendal