Job Discussion Forums

[7969]

well, i know i said some time ago i had made my last post, and i was doing quite well not having the desire to surf the net 24/7.

at any rate, i do have some concerns i need addressed.

1. my colleague and i have contracts that end on july 30th. our teaching was completed last week. at my first job in china the contract was paid out till the last day, regardless of whether we taught or not. we're arguing that we should be paid till end of contract, which is the end of this month. the school disagrees. we've already pointed out to them in black and white the start and end dates of the contract. they dont seem to want to catch on. is there any other argument we can use here?

2. the school is insisting that we buy the air ticket as proof of purchase before refunding the airfare bonus. despite the contract saying that "party B will be paid the RMB equivalent of the airfare." do they not understand what they've written or am i missing something?

3. i paid my utility bill two weeks ago. seems i got off easy with only RMB170 to pay (for the 9 months i was here). no major appliances i suppose will result in a low bill. my colleague, on the other hand, who's been in his flat for 10 months was given a bill for RMB3200 that everyone we've talked to thinks is ridiculous, esp. considering that he gets 50kW per month for free. any thoughts on this?

my colleague is from africa and they've been sticking it to him on and off for the whole time here. we tried to avoid all these problems by discussing these issues with our school two weeks ago but it seems our conversations and memos fell on deaf ears and blind eyes. only now that i'm on the verge of leaving has our school seen fit to f*** me over in a similar fashion as my colleague. however, we just called our "leader" and told her we were headed to the foreign affairs bureau in the city. she said feel free to go wherever you like and i told her not to worry, we will.

any suggestions on the above three points welcome.

Note: 15 minutes after advising our school that we were going to foreign affairs, i got a call from our "leader" saying that I (not my colleague) could go to the finance office this afternoon to be paid. not sure what the details are, or if it actually includes any of the points we're contesting here.

all this, two days before planning to leave this place for good

7969

[Voldermort]

1. Unless the contract states something like "If party B works less than 1 month it shall be paid daily", you should be paid in full up until the termination day of the contract. You can argue this with the school and the FAO but it will probably get you nowhere.

2. A meeting with the FAO and possibly the PSB should resolve this. They state they will pay the RMB equivlent, so you should get some written quotes and present them to your leader. A tactic here may be to settle for a little less. If it's a no go situation, try the FAO.

3. Seems a little outrageous(?). Try asking for copies of the bills. There is nothing much you can do about this, all the school will do is deduct it from the salary. Really you don't have a leg to stand on. For your next contract make sure to write it in that you will only pay this after viewing the bill.

Going to the FAO may simply be fruitless if the school has enough guanxi with them. In future make it a point to pay them a visit and make friends when you first arrive in a new city.

[7969]

[Voldermort]

[7969]

unfortunately, i believe our admin building has only 8 floors. but that ought to be enough.

[Super Mario]

It ends on the last day of your contract. My former school tried that a few times. Quietly stating my position and threatening to make a big noise resolved the problem.
Its the bean counters in the finance department who pull this one. Your FAO is just the meat in the sandwich.

[Yu]

Seems that you should get paid for the entire month.
I got paid last year for half of July but I left in August. My contract was only until the middle of July though. I picked up my salary the next year. No problem. (If all else fails and there is some friend there you trust you may resort to them picking up the last amount of salary for you.)

For the airticket... did the faxed copy from the travel agent work? If you actually want the ticket, have the FAO book it for you.

My most expensive bill for electricity was around 1200 (first cold month--DID not like waking up to a cold room anywhere in the house---really stupid, I know). It is usually around 500 per month for me for elect