Job Discussion Forums

[7969]

my school has presented me with a new contract appendix in which they have indicated they made some changes. among them, a change to my end of contract benefits. they're now going from offering reimbursement for a round trip ticket to a one way, provided i show the ticket to be reimbursed.

i made a compromise on the salary (took a lower salary than i earned last year) to come here, so i'm not prepared to move on this one. all the other teachers at our school, are on the round trip ticket reimbursement, and all of them (unlike myself) had come to this job from their home countries. i think the school sees my presence in china before coming to this school as a way of not paying the full benefits previously offered.

other than the fact that most one year contracts offer round trip ticket reimbursement at the end of the contract, what else can i say to make my case for this provision to be kept in the contract? in fact, since i dont plan to go home at the end of the current school year, i want to have the contract appendix changed to read "party A will pay party B the RMB equivalent of the ticket at the end of the contract."

i will meet with the school officials soon to discuss this. i caved in a bit on the salary when i originally signed the contract, but i'm not prepared to back down on this and i'm reluctant to accept anything less than what everyone else is getting.

7969

[Songbird]

Perhaps you can give them the website address for SAFEA, which is http://www.safea.gov.cn/english/

Which has the 'standard' benefits for teachers in China, also show them various jobs from the internet (like here at Dave's) to show them what other places are offering.

I am in the same boat- I took a pay cut this year in my new position, but the general environment and FAO are fantastic, it's a really good place to work, no pressure, so I don't mind. I even signed for 2, not 1 year.

Interestingly I am the ONLY foreign teacher here who even gets the airfare paid for - even then they were going to try and back out of it and I said no, airfare in contract or I walk. The other teachers are from the Phillipines and Ghana, so they're not native speakers, I guess this was the clincher. I would never walk into a job in China without airfare!

[tw]