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[johnslat]

I'm pretty sure even soapdodger has his own brand of personal ethics. In fact, I suspect he's really highly ethical.

[soapdodger]

Ahem, I am not at liberty to discuss my personal ethics; their discussion would be unethical!!!
Related question. Is this ethical? At an interview recently, a large language factory told me, on being asked, that they paid salaries to teachers on the 18th of the following month. When I made a face like I was sucking a lemon, the interviewer tried to justify this/ ameliorate it by saying " Well, the people in the office only get paid on the 15th." I thought that put the perceived value of teachers in the grand scheme of language business very much in perspective. Needless to say I finished that interview with " Don't call me, I'll call you".
This sort of practice amuses me, or at least the way people take it lying down does. In the case of a very small school with mainly slow-paying corporate clients such a delay would almost, almost, be justifiable. Reality isn't like that though. People pay for courses upfront and companies are usually very quick payers in my experience. Anyone who has cashflow problems on a monthly basis such that they can't make timely payments to their staff simply shouldn't be in business.
This kind of underhand practice is common in all business, and is being done at the behest of banks, who cut deals with employers to make sure that their money stays in the bank longer, earning money for the bank, and to a lesser extent the company. There are no excuses for it, especially in the age of electronic cash transfer, but it is quite fascinating how many people will clutch at any excuse they can come up with to justify how they are being anally assualted. People of the world, all together now - Baaaa, baaa, baaa.
In EFL there is a trade-specific add-on to this one. It is often the sign of a school which is definitely not worth working for. Being used to teachers walking without warning(usually on or just after payday) because of the way the school has treated them, they want to guarantee a couple of weeks' unpaid work from leavers. Ethical? You decide......or make a nice argument to justify it for them.

[Will.]

Ethics?
Wossat?
You're 'avin' a larf incha?
Turn East at London.
We all talk with a lisp.