Job Discussion Forums

[Austrian]

[Roger]

Mein liebes Oesterreicherle,

honestly - I like you! But I have to disagree with you as the pope disagrees with Hu Jintao. There is little room in between.
You have been here a little over a couple of months. Have you ever signed a contact? What did it specify? Are you legal?
All of this is none of my business, but whenever I had a legal post (and not all of my jobs came with the blessing of the PSB), then the contract would be pretty clear on most points. I saw little at variance even with western countries that I happen to know - South Africa, France, Israel, Italy, Germany and others. You sign a contract you are part of a company and have to submit to their patriarch's rules. They may elect to add extra hours to your schedule; how can you juggle that with your undeclared other jobs? They must be in the full possession of knowledge of what you are doing. most jobs come with all those perks that make living here so much cheaper - and housing is one of those that enable your boss to spy on you. They want to know when you are in or out. Some schools actually require you to get permission for lengthy trips away from the school, - ostensibly out of "concern for your safety".
This Great wall is becoming ever more porous, I know (and I welcome it).But there still is a legal clause in many a FTs contract that stipulates that you have to seek permission from your superiors to work on the side. In most cases, working for other employers is explicitly banned.
This may be one of the reasons why EF require their teachers to sit many office hours in their premises on top of their actual teaching. eF job holders put in 40 hours a week - normally!

Now, as for Chinese staff, I can tell you that lots of them moonlight too. They brazenly break their own contracts. Does this mean you are entitled to the same illegal acts? Don't forget - until some ten years back most Chinese had life-time jobs. They could not quit nor could they be terminated... I happen to know a number of teachers still working under these socialist rules. FOr them to be released from their current life-time job they would have to make an extraordinary effort at convincing their school's masters/principals and the CP cell (most universities and colleges still have a Party cell).

I don't know what fate awaits a Chinese rule breaker; those who signed a new contract that does not refer to life-time employment can be fired. To be fired is a most unpleasant consequence for a Chinese person - they routinely forfeit their salary for the current month! Plus their employer can exercise any privilege of harassing the jobless, making it impossible for them to find a new job.

And many Chinese moonlighters lose out in the twilight of the gray market that straddles both their legal situation and an illegal position. I know a guy that made 2500 (12 years of service in the same normal school!), who had been moonlighting for maybe over one year; he went without his pay for 4 months, each month hearing "we are going to pay next month as we are having some unexpected little problems..."
Finally, the director of the school where he was working illegally was reported to the police by her permanent staff and incarcerated. It transpired that she had been embezzling school funds for possibly years, amounting to at least one million yuan.
My friend lost several thousand RMB - a small potato.

Ah, you asked about my "triple income": I have mentioned it time and again: my bosses have always allowed me to make extra money. In fact, most of them introduced me to private students. this has been the case for the last 5 years now. But my very first 2 employers were most decidedly adamant about this:no work on the side, and they meant it!

[Austrian]

From Hu Jintao to the Pope!

ok, Mr. Pope, I do not want to get into a dispute with you over the moonlighting biz, cuz as we both know, you have had your current job for quite much longer than I - but this thread started on extra office hours, kind of suddenly and unexpectedly introduced at some school. Then extra office hours got connected with preventing FTs from moonlighting.

Dear Mr. Pope, I'd like to set this thread back on track again - if I was a FT working my requested hours for the school with no intention to moonlight for another, why should I be made to sit in an office, so I won't moonlight, if I didn't have the slightest interest to do so - above all, if it's not in my current contract - wasn't that Rhonda Place's dilemma? I'm saying FTs should try not to agree to contract changes which means an increase from so many teaching hours to double the amount cuz of newly introduced office hours with no pay change.

As there might be a tendency on the employer's part, there should be a counter-tendency on the empoyer's part. The moonlighting is a completely diff. issue. But as I said, this is getting too complex, complicated and difficult to discuss on a board. If I ever make it to Shenzhen or wherever you'll be teaching at that time, I'll treat you for dinner and we might come to a common denominator after a few glasses of good French wine (as they prob won't have any Austrian .

Plus, as a matter of fact this thread has lost its ground as Rhonda Place mentioned that the office hour issue has been forgotten at this point ...

Gruezi - Hab' die Ehre