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senor boogie woogie
Joined: 25 Feb 2003
Posts: 676
Location: Beautiful Hangzhou China
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 Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2004 11:24 am Post subject: Work more for less money! |
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Hola!
I have been "freelancing" for the past couple of months. I am currently working for two employers. One has given me 4 hours academic hours per week at 100 RMB/hour. No problems from them.
The other school employs me for 8 hours a week. All the classes are kiddie, but its usually fun. I communicate with a girl in the office, who is about 23 (cute as hell). I was given these classes in stages, and they seemed to be pleased with my labors. 100 RMB/an academic period. I should mention that the schools are in three different places in the city.
The girl told me that she wanted to make me a full time teacher. She told me that a full time teacher makes 6,000 RMB for 20 hours a week. Remember, I am now making 100 per hour (and they paid me once).
When I heard 6,000 coming from those red soft wet lips, I said "You meant 8,000 right?" No, 6,000. "Oh, 15 hours a week" No, 20. I told her no, but she said "But its 6,000 a month!" like to say that they only pay me 3200 now and that I would get a greater reward for accepting such a sucker contract. I was nice, (as I could be) and told her that I like things the way they are. I work for 100 per hour, and I am cheap, reliable and charitable.
I call these contracts, "UP TO contracts" which states that the school will pay you, let's say 6,000 a month for UP TO 20 hours per week. You can be working 15 hours for a long time, then the company can add a class on you and you wont make any more now, than you did then.
Always get paid by the hour, and get paid what your worth.
Senor |
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kev7161
Joined: 06 Feb 2004
Posts: 5880
Location: Suzhou, China
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| Posted: Tue Oct 19, 2004 1:50 am Post subject: |
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I have an "up to" contract. I teach up to 18 periods per week for my salary. The reason I had them say "up to" in the contract was due to last term. I was teaching 12 periods each week (although I could have been scheduled for eighteen) and felt a little guilty about it (just a little, mind you). I'm glad I had the "up to" put in my contract as, when I reported for work this term, I was scheduled for 19 periods. I pointed this out in my contract. They offered to pay me 50 rmb for that 19th period each week and I said "no thanks". Now this class has no English teacher, regardless of the fact that we have some FTs working far less than 18 periods, don't ask me why.
Last edited by kev7161 on Thu Oct 21, 2004 1:42 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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tarzaninchina
Joined: 16 Aug 2004
Posts: 348
Location: World
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| Posted: Thu Oct 21, 2004 7:02 am Post subject: More 4 less? |
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Getting an 'up to' clause results in a lot of stability because you'll still get paid for the 3 main national holidays (National, Labor, Spring Festival) AND sick leave.
Then there's summer work (if you're working for a public school for the rest of the year).
Divide it out. Monthly salary, allocations for living expenses, traveling, savings, airfare, etc. Divide that evenly by month and then work out how many hours per week. Eleven hours per week at 150 is similar to a 20-hour contract without healthcare! Definitely wouldn't even think of working for less than 3 digits per hour for freelancing. Wouldn't think of doing translation work for less than 250 per hour (with a paid Chinese friend).
Guess it helps to have studied business at univesity for a bit....  |
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Chris_Crossley
Joined: 26 Jun 2004
Posts: 1797
Location: Still in the centre of Furnace City, PRC, after eight years!!!
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| Posted: Fri Oct 22, 2004 3:56 pm Post subject: My first posting on the subject |
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I refer you all to my very first posting on Dave's:
| I wrote: |
Would you willingly sign a contract that may say that you have to work an extra day per week during the peak summer season and/or teach a few extra hours a week � FOR NO MORE PAY?!
Speaking with the benefit of hindsight, I would say that it is utterly ludicrous for private language schools to insist that their teachers be made to do more for no more pay just because it happens to be the peak season when more students come to study. Yet there are plenty of expatriates who have signed a full-time contract which says � in effect � that they must do more work for no more plenty during the very time when one would think that teachers should receive more money for more teaching.
After all, summer is the peak time when private language schools generate more than enough revenue to satisfy even the greediest of investors � and yet the successes of summer schools are based mostly on the sweat, frustration, fatigue and tears of full-timers who have signed contracts which condemn them to work more for no more money (to a certain extent).
I had signed two 12-month contracts for a private school, a franchisee, in which signers were expected to work up to one more day per week (six instead of five) and teach up to five more real hours per week � for NO more money. Having been through the rigors of two summer schools, I used to hear bitter mutterings from my fellow teachers, who described the situation as �sheer slavery�. What, they asked themselves, possessed them to do something they never would have dreamed of doing in a million years back home? Yes, they realized that they had signed the contracts, and signing implies that they have read and understood the conditions, and that they therefore had to abide by those conditions.
Of course, these people, undoubtedly hungry to start or continue their TEFL career, had been recruited during the off-peak season, a time of relatively low teaching loads. Perhaps they thought that there was nothing to make a fuss about. �An extra five hours of teaching a week for no more pay? OK, so long as it�s just for a few weeks�� Maybe that was something that they didn�t fully understand at the time � yet, by the time they realized that they had to deal with more classes full of kids who don�t understand and don�t want to be there and don�t want to learn and who want just to talk and talk, it was far too late.
I can be thankful that I have, since February this year, gone over to the public sector, which means that I now have the benefit of a full summer�s vacation where, if I teach at a summer school, be it in the public or the private sector (and I have done both already this summer), I get PAID for EVERY lesson I do, and I mean EVERY. In one summer school lasting seven days, I earned the equivalent of a MONTH�S salary based on what I receive from my public school.
THIS is what we expatriates should be doing when we come to teach English in foreign countries. To me, the private schools, which want people to sign up as full-time teachers to do more work in the summer for no more money, are guilty of exploitation. I should know, because fellow colleagues used to tell me that they felt no better off than slaves. Yet, as I said, the conditions were laid out in the contracts � the summer work conditions came as no surprise to them, and so it was basically their own lookout, and they had therefore little choice but to swallow their annoyance.
This is one way of learning about the realities of teaching abroad for private language schools. Thank heaven I am no longer in this �mock-slavery� position now � if I want to do more, I get PAID � provided, of course, that the opportunities to do more work exist during your well-earned vacation (shop around!). So, fellow expatriates, if you feel a little disgruntled this summer because of this �more-work-and-no-more-pay� situation, take heart: your contract will eventually expire and you can seek other opportunities where you may not have to be in that situation again. I did, and I�m more than a little grateful for it. |
The "franchised" school in question was EF English First in Wuhan. The contract clause that states that one is expected to teach "up to" 29 hours per week during the peak season (as opposed to "up to" 24 during the off-peak season) can be found in any EF "ordinary" teacher contract (at least in China), so it is not unique to EF Wuhan by any means.
And I also know that another private school (which I have visited but shall not name) has actually copied all the conditions word for word into its own full-time contracts. Needless to say, I won't work for either EF again or that other school in the future on a full-time basis.
The conditions I still have now at my public primary school are much, much better, including the fact that I get paid for 11 months for just 38 weeks' work, something that EF wouldn't do for its employees! |
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