Job Discussion Forums

[englishgibson]

There're all kinda contracts out there around China, but there's one FAO SAFEA contract.
There're all kinda absurd points/clauses in all those contracts, and there're some absurd points/clauses in the FAO contract too.
Sure that Chinese employers would love to have foreign "b*tches" around to make a buck, but if it comes from the FAO ......

[MITCH]

EG, thanks for all your comments, and advice.

Can anyone answer this one???

Walked into the FAO this afternoon. I had gotten the job of my dreams. The teaching schedule from the FT department. Everything was in place.

I asked the FAO for one more thing. She looked at me.(What else?)

I'd like the contract.

She showed me the contract. One copy signed by the president. (I have to point out, it took her 2 weeks to get the bosses signature.)

Folks, this is the job i've been looking for. I said to her i'd like to have the original, and she could keep a copy. I'd be happy to sign another contract that she could keep.

This is a famous institution, a university.

FAO: "Why didn't you tell me to make two copies in English and Chinese?"

ME: "It's not my job to tell you how to do your job".

FAO: "Don't you trust me?"

ME: "Of course i do! But it's the contract law we are dealing with. I want the original, and i want the Chop".

FAO: "The Chop person is not in today."

Finally i suggested i'd keep the original English copy, and she could keep the original Chinese, and i would get a copy of the Chinese version.

ME: Can i have your signature too?

FAO: No.

*BUTT, NO CHOP!

FAO: All the other FT's have no Chop.

*QUESTION: Is my contract legal?

I tried my best folks, really......

[Shan-Shan]

The law is fluid here, morphing into shapes and degrees of enforcement which differ from one instance to the next. Even if 胡锦涛 and 玉蒂 both co-signed your contract, it would depend on extenuating circumstances to determine its weight and authority.

Nice, though, that you've been able to combine "dream", "employment" and "China" all into one.

[MITCH]

Shan Shan,

I've had the bliss before, and i'm trying to find her again.

The combination of good conditions, excited university students eager to learn, gives me hope that i'm going to have another wonderful experience.

Legal or not, i will do them proud.

You have always got to be optimistic, and make things happen.

[englishgibson]

This sticky's showing well how FTs contracts are in China. It's great that this topic's been put up as a sticky.
Mitch, your "contract experience" reflects China pretty well.

[Gregor]

Going into my third year in China, and a new employer, I encountered the SAFEA contract for the first time. I was asked to sign that, in Chinese, and the school's regular contract. This was an EF, by the way. The school I worked for before was an EF as well. But the SAFEA thing was new I guess.
It seemed very dodgy to me. It IS dodgy, but dodgy doesn't always mean you're getting screwed. It just means you feel kind of unsure and insecure. This time, it turned out fine.
The school told me that the SAFEA contract was legally necessary for me to obtain my residence permit (which ad ALSO recently changed - this was early 2005 and previously I had a Z visa in my passport and a little green booklet for residence. This time I had just a residence permit affixed to my passport, no visa - but then again, I didn't have to enter the country, so maybe a visa was unnecessary).
Anyway. They assured me that the EF contract was the actual "rule of the road," and the SAFEA contract was only a formality to be ignored.
For what it was worth, I preferred to live under the EF contract. It was more fair to the worker. In my opinion and experience, the SAFEA contract tended to be a bit one sided.
And that was how they really worked it. I was lucky that way. I was not taken unfair advantage of. But you want to be careful, especially if you're a newbie.

Really, the best contract advice I can give a newbie is to READ the contract, and then do the job it and the job description and code of conduct describe, and do it for the prescribed duration. If you do that, the Chinese management will LOVE you, and will do back-flips to keep you happy and just keep you, or at the very least get you back some day.
Before you get into a nit-picky dispute over something that really doesn't matter, think about the dispute. IF it's a serious concern, and you are otherwise an exemplary teacher, you can get a solution with patience and diplomacy.
If, on the other hand, it's a cry-baby complaint, or else a complaint that doesn't really concern you (keep your Western ideas in the West is good advice when going East)* and your students don't much like you, anyway, then you're going to have the kinds of problems that whingers and complainers on this board (we all know who they are) wind up with.
I don't personally know a single poster on this forum. But I was a DoS at two EFs in China and I've been teaching in various countries for close to ten years now. And among my colleagues and friends and acquaintances over all those years, the only real serious whingers I have ever met were teachers who did not follow those pieces of advice. I'm talking about HUNDREDS of people, y'all. I have only once encountered a teacher who wasn't at least partially asking for trouble. And even that one time, the employer eventually made it right. It was a miscommunication, not intentional.
Oh, I saw and had to deal with various problems during my tenure as DoS, but in every case, I was dealing with failure to communicate, lack of trust, and lack of diplomacy (on the part of both parties, sometimes, but you can only control yourself).
So that's my advice. Only sign a contract you've read and then understood, then do your job as well as you can, and don't leave early.
And then, if a problem arises, don't treat it like "US vs THEM." Treat it as a solvable problem. 99.9% of the time, IT IS.

* This is important. You will encounter racism in the form of schools refusing to hire blacks, or different treatment of Chinese colleagues and FTs, possibly dodgy practices on the part of your employer, and smoking in crowded rooms and spitting and any number of things you might find distasteful, but you need to be aware that this is what you will encounter. If you come here as an FT, it's not your business and complaints of that sort are going to be seen as cry-baby complaints. If you don't like it, don't come. If you want to change the culture, then sign on for life and dedicate your life to stamping out these things in China. But this is what it will be like, so there you go.

[englishgibson]

Nice post Gregor...I quite agree...although I'd worry about having signed two different Contracts...the more "agreements" you sign the more obligations you might have...well SAFEA doesn't particularly outlines much of the FTs job duties or rights but it surely protects the employers pretty well.