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 electricity. The Air con is a huge money sucker of electricity.

[mondrian]

The exorbitant electricicty bill reminds me of the run-in we foreign teachers had with the management of our "luxury" hotel.
One of us (who just happened to be the DOS) got a bill for 3000RMB for one month's usage. Now this guy was a careful man. He calculated what he used every week and noted things down. So when he confronted the management , he had evidence. The reply was that his meter was not functioning correctly and that his bill was the true amount owed. Our guy then went to the FAO about the stand-off and insisted that the electricity board came and checked it. They said it was working OK, but was he aware of the fact that his meter was the master meter for the whole building! End of our electricity free days!

[7969]

the results are in.

let me start from the beginning. i arrived at this school in mid-october 05. at the end of that month, i was given a full months salary even tho i hadnt worked the full month. i appreciated that the school did that for me. throughout my stay here, things went relatively smoothly. other than not equipping the flat properly at the outset (no computer at all, only received air-con two weeks ago), the fact that it took them nearly a month after my arrival to get my flat ready (i had to stay in austere accommodation on campus till then), and the various repairs i needed made in the flat (more often than not toilet related), there were few problems with the school . they paid us monthly, sometimes early, sometimes late, but they paid us. the schedule was followed more or less for the entire time i was here, with few changes. and the students here were decent (in some cases very eager to learn) and i actually looked forward to going to class (most days). lastly, there were a few teachers at the school that i could rely on if i needed help. but ultimately, i learned to rely on the students more and more as time went by.

however, this school (like many others) does have serious problems in communicating information and performing administrative duties. if i saw a potential problem (such as this salary dispute) on the horizon i tried to use pre-emptive action to have it resolved before it became a major issue, through the use of memos and email as well as face to face conversations with our "leader." this usually resulted in nothing more than wasted time.

my duties here finished at the end of june. my exams had been given, my marks had been submitted and i had paid my utility bill. all that remained was to be paid the benefits according to the contract. a lot of time was spent running around talking to one person or another in finance or in the english department, none of whom could make a decision it seemed. at least three visits to the school (located well outside the city) on my own time were wasted trying to find out when i would be paid.

i had requested three items:

1. july salary (contract expires on july 30th);
2. RMB2200 bonus for vacation; and
3. reimbursement for airfare to return home.

yesterday at the meeting i had with an assistant to our boss, they asked why i insisted on july salary. i pointed out that the contract expires at the end of this month and that its normal to be paid till the last day. it was pointed out to me that i should work for the month of july if i wanted the money.... that i should work training the teachers for the month of july and that the teaching department was drawing up my teaching plan as we spoke. sensing something devious here (and they knew i was anxious to get out of town), i said what they didnt expect to hear: "fine, if there's work for me to do, i'll do it." that was the last i heard with respect to working in july. obviously it was nothing more than a ploy to have me to forfeit the months salary, thereby not leaving them open to any contract violation. prior to this meeting, i had to listen to my boss rant fairly liberally about my colleague, her telling me what she thought of him. she also said, if i understood her correctly, that the school will no longer be hiring foreign teachers, which is a shame because most of the students here come from the henan countryside or small cities and they've never had a foreign teacher before.

it was also pointed out to me that the school had paid me a half months salary in october that i hadnt earned. i acknowledged that, and also pointed out that the school wasnt obligated to do what they did back then. i was offered two of the three items i had requested above (i forget which two now). after a few minutes thought, i just said, "ok, since the school paid me for all of october, i'm willing to forfeit the RMB2200 holiday bonus, but i wont accept anything less than the salary and the reimbursement for the air ticket." that was an acceptable compromise.

so in the end, i was paid my july salary and was reimbursed for the air ticket. altho they short-changed me somewhat on that since the price of the air ticket was in $HK but they reimbursed in RMB (losing about RMB300 in the process). at any rate, i was just happy to get it over with. it was becoming a colossal headache.

in closing, during my stay, the school did show some good will towards me at times, but unfortunately, much of that seemed to have evaporated in the past two weeks. i dont think i ever requested anything unreasonable of them, but they might (probably would) disagree.

i would hope that this school, which is an economics and business management college, doesnt pass on their ways of human resources management via instruction to their students :wink

as for my colleague, i wish him well. i was told by my boss that the school respects me and that they want to make sure we part on friendly terms. i agreed, few things worse than leaving a place and having people say they're glad you're gone. on the OTOH, they dont like my colleague..... so i can only imagine whats in store for him in the coming days.

ultimately, through this experience, the school admin has unwittingly given me loads of role play material for future human resource related english classes.

my experience at the zhengzhou economic and business management institute has now come to an end.

[Voldermort]

Glad to hear of your success. Do you think it possible to also let us know the outcome of your colleagues problems?

I didn't realise you were in Zhengzhou, I will be travelling there within the next 2 weeks.

[7969]

voldermort, i'm sure i'll be hearing from him. i'll be sure to post it.

7969

[Lobster]

As usual, a good story and a good resolution to the problem. Well done 7969! Hope to see you on the board again often.

RED

[tw]

My former employer in Dalian, Dalian Institute of Light Industry, and my now-former employer, Inner Mongolia Nationality College, both paid my salary based on the contract's ending date. I haven't stepped inside a classroom since June 23 but I was paid for the period ending July 10.

Personally, I would've expected employers not to pay for any days after the last day of final exam administered by the FT.

[7969]

[tw]