Job Discussion Forums

[BigD]

My friend is currently working at an IT college in Shijiazhuang, Hebei, PRC. The school has been paying the foreign staff late and many of the teachers have been shorted money owed to them by the school. In Addition, the school has violated other aspects of the government contract signed by him and school. He has logged ten seperate violations since he signed the contract.
The company(New Times) that brought him to China is also unwilling to help him. They always claim that they will help the foreigners they bring to China but that is LIE. They like to make all these promises just to get you to China but once they get you here on your own. So, if you plan on coming China stay away from Shijiazhuang IT college and New Times LTD.
where can my friend turn to help resolve this contract dispute? The school does even acknowledge the contarct exists? How can he let the government know about this situation?

[tofuman]

You can try the provincial FAO.

If that doesn't help and your friend stays around the school,how is he/she different from anyone else who stays in an abusive relationship? Your friend should insist on being paid properly, everything owed, and if he is not paid, he should leave.

[ChadinChina]

Big D...if you don't mind elaborating on a few issues, I'm sure we can help you out a bit.

First off who is your friend? I've known the owner of New Times for over 2 years now, and have been more than happy with their outsourcing up to this point (as I've posted on these forums before). Have I seen teachers who have problems with New Times? Yes. The vast majority of those claims in my previous experience is from people who came to China through another company called Global Crossroads to whom they had paid money. When they got here to China, they discovered GXR had cheated them, but they still felt that they were due some things that GXR promised (such as one couple who stayed for 2 or 3 weeks and expected round trip airfare).

There have been others who have come, and were upset but most of them just didn't handle the culture shock, or didn't really understand what they were getting into. I'm not saying that these are bad people, etc...but let's face it, China can be a world unto itself, and if you're of African ancestry, or Asian you may feel slighted or outright unwanted at times. There are just so many conditions, but the bottom line is I've used New Times before and I'll use them again.

I think I might know the individual in question, if I might guess 2 facts to see if I'm correct? Is/Was he:
1) from New York
2) sharing an appartment with another foreign teacher (who was from Boston or Philly if memory serves)?

If so pls let me know.

If now let me ask a few quick questions:
1) What other provisions were broken? If I was correct in guessing the above 2 you don't need to answer, because I believe I already know, but if you have any shocking/surprise info that'd help me.
2) How long had the other foreign staff been around while not receiving their due compensation?
3) Why would the foreign staff stick around without due compensation? Was it a case where the school kept stringing them along, etc? I'm sorry to make this kind of like question 4 inside of question 3, but can you elaborate on what the school said?

For help with your contract you have to go through this red tape, which as I understand things, typically costs a good deal of money, and it ends up a situation where your friend loses and the school loses, but the lawyers/legal system gets money. I've been told that the ammount has to be well in excess of 20,000RMB before you'd even consider looking at it as a potentially winning situation.

[Voldermort]

BigD,

I have a fair of idea of who you are and I am pretty sure of who your friend is. But since you have not mentioned any names I will not either. I think me and Chad are thinking the same thing here and are also thinking about the same person.

I understand posting all the details on here of everything that has happened and how you feel may feel a little daunting, especially when you know the people you are talking about read these forums. I am not going to take sides at this stage but I will offer my help to sort these problems.

Regarding 'Hebei New Times', I can only talk about my personal experience and what I have seen them do for other teachers. In my situation I went to the company with a lot of baggage and problems that they could easily turn their back to. But instead they helped me. They treated me fairly. Understandably this is somewhat of a different situation. The way you are treated after signing the contract is more important than the way you were treated before. This is what makes or breaks a company.

BigD, I have sent you a PM, containing my details and who I think your friend is. Please pass the message on for me that I will help him. If it is the person I am thinking about, then he will know that I tried to help him after he arrived here and put him straight with a lot of issues.

[nolefan]

Something sounds fishy in this story. I personally know most -if not all- the teachers that come through New Times and hang out with them twice a month when I go to Shijiazhuang ( I just got back from there). There is no such thing happening there that I or anyone in the office knows off. But that is besides the point.

First, if the teacher came though New Times, he/she has a contract with a school that has permission to hire foreigners and thus is legally employed. Such a contract would have been signed in the New Times office and both parties should have a copy. The school cannot claim that there is no contract. plain and simple.

Second, New times is usually the first one to tell the teachers to get out of there when they are informed that something is fishy. They just did that this weekend with an school that made false claims and tried to farm the teacher out.

If there is such a dispute, the person can email me and I will personnaly make sure that this is taken care of (even though I doubt this is a real honest complaint). Almost everyone there has my phone number and he/she should know who I am. Fair enough?

[ChadinChina]

Just checking up, but with no update from you or your friend here, or via pm, I'm assuming that things are ok now? If you would please give us an update. I'm also currious as to which college the person in question works in. Please respond at your nearest convenience.

[ChadinChina]

Ok well this is day 2 with no new information posted here, has anyone here gotten word back from BigD yet? If not then I'm inclined to believe that nolefan's nose detecting fishy smells might be accurate and this might be nothing more than one agent trying to bash another. Nole, Vold, you guys getting any communication from BigD or does this start to smell ripe to you guys as well?

[Voldermort]

Nothing as of yet. I'm also starting to get a little suspicious about this post.

1. Why is a 'friend' posting this type of message and not the person him/herself?

2. Why the lack of details?

3. Why no reply?

It's all too easy to say a bad thing about a school or agent, but it's not so easy to back those claims up. If this is a genuine post and not some random power quest, please provide us with further information so that we can help.

[nolefan]

Nothing here either. It was just one of those post and disappear acts apparently. I'm thinking it's one of two things:

1- Another agent/recruiter trying to spoil the reputation of New Times with unfounded and fabricated claims.

2- A certain person we are familiar with that came over using New Times and bailed on their original contract after borrowing money from NT and the school they worked out. This person must be in a lot of trouble at the moment by all accounts because they have burned a lot of bridges.

Either ways, it's not worth spending more time dealing with unless this person takes the time to present us with more details.

[ChadinChina]

That's exactly my point in making the past 2 posts - just pointing out that if this is a legit cry for help, we're here...but I find it odd that nobody who's replied to this thread has gotten any feedback.

I think it's safe to say this is the guy in question the three of us are talking about, and if so let me present the other side of the story, which I know all to well since I'm teaching in his old school:
1) first and foremost, I can't justify it, and I wouldn't want to, but people in China are xenophobic and racist by large and far. Some to less degrees than others, but that'd be a fair characterization of the people in China from my experience teaching, and having one for a mother. To top that off, it seems that someplace near the top of this list of people they dislike (in general terms) are people who's heritage clearly (And visibly) leads back to Africa. Sorry to say it, but it's just the way it is, and I have several friends from Nigera and Cameroon who are wonderful teachers, but the Chinese tend to offer them less money whenever they can even get a contract. I mention this because the person we believe to be in question has roots in Africa despite being an American. Tough luck man, and it really sucks to see such discrimination - and I met the guy in question a few tiems and he seemed really nice and cool. I'm not sure what the Chinese don't like about them, but this guy seemed AOK in my book.
2) The person we believe is in question (provided that this isn't just a sham/slander post) did indeed borrow money both from New Times Int'l and from our cluster of schools (there are at least 3 schools pooling together to pay for 2 foreign teachers here, it's not a one school kind of thing). As of about 1 hour ago when I checked neither New Times nor the schools had been contacted about repayment.
3) The teacher arrived at the start of Spring Festival, probably the worst time to arrive looking for contracts, etc. I know he was cooling his heels for a long time, etc, and I can totally understand it - been there done that. But the bottom line is that when it was me, I just felt I could only blame myself for not doing enough research and picking a poor time to arrive (I like to work, I can't stand being idle for weeks at a time...and I think the person in question can't either...most people don't like the idea of being in a foreign country, idle like that for a long period of time without anything going on. I can understand that).
4) As kind of a #1 and #4 combo - man it doesn't seem like a whole lot of research went into coming here, or perhaps there were extenuating circumstances.

So tell your friend what I've said, and if this sounds like a fair assesment of the side of the story that wasn't previously told, then let us know. If we don't get any answer back in a few days, I'm just going to figure this as a blatant slander post and disregard it.

[ChadinChina]

Ok, as we've seen no response to our attempts to help this person I think this is quite clearly a case of somebody just making an unwarranted attack. The bottom line is New Times is a good company to go through, and if this person was serious they would have responded to our attempts to help them. I've said my 2 cents, and shame on you BigD for spreading malicous lies.

[burnsie]

First of all agencies cannot help you at all in anything. Unless you are contracted to them they cannot do anything. Even if the agency tries to help you with the school they placed you in they are told to mind their own business or they won't get any more work from the school in the future.

If anybody believes that agencies can help because they brought you here are plain naive!