Job Discussion Forums

[Mr Cleaves]

Anyone interested in applying for jobs with Ukrida Penabur International and/or one of the Singapore International School franchises should be aware that legal cases are in process brought by teachers who have been summarily dismissed, i.e. legal disciplinary procedures have not been followed nor, in many cases, have any reasons been given.

There is a law governing employment, Act No 13, 2003, and the Industrial Relations Court is increasingly supporting wronged employees who, according to the Director General of the Manpower Ministry, "should not be treated as mere tools of production".

However, although legal precedents have been established, new recruits to UPI, SIS and a few EF schools, should be aware generally of the following transgressions of this Act, and others. Criminal proceedings are also being considered against UPI.
1. Verbal agreements are rarely backed up in writing.
2. New recruits are expected to serve a probationary period (of up to six months!) on a fixed term contract.
3. New recruits may find themselves at the risk of deportation because their work and residence permits are not being processed. Working on a business or tourist visa is strictly illegal; two teachers working for TBI in Bogor on business visas were deported in June.
4. ALL expats working in Indonesia are personally liable for income tax. Although salaries are supposedly paid 'net', not one of now more than 50 UPI teachers has received a statement of tax paid.
5. Employers of all recruited expats, whether recruited locally or abroad, should provide employees with an airline ticket, or money in lieu, to their country of origin. In practice, this is not done for those recruited locally by UPI.
6. By the term 'expat', I include Indians and Filipinos, many of whom have not been paid their final salaries by SIS as per their signed contracts. This is the basis of further legal proceedings.

I have posted background information about UPI on my blog, Jakartass ~ see January 1st 2007. For details of the recent SIS case, read Hukum (Law) Online (in bahasa Indonesia): http://www.hukumonline.com/detail.asp?id=16459&cl=Berita.

Anyone already here facing a similar predicament is welcome to get in touch with me, poss. via my blog. There are a number of competent and honest lawyers and police officers in town prepared to assist 'exploited expats' and it is no longer a case of "they have more money than you."

[mulutmubesar]

That is very helpful and informative. A thread like this should be positively supported. Thank you for your concern for all the expats,regardess of the skin colour. I just wish that my former colleagues who were "victimised" in the past will find out about this.

[treacle]

I totally agree. This is a thread that should most definitely be supported, is the abuse of expatriate workers by some EF schools as bad as the appalling manner in which EF teachers were treated by school owners in China?

Could we also have information about which EF schools have lawsuits pending, this would be most appreciated.

Do national schools tend to treat their staff better than the places listed by OP ? I had a few pm's from people saying that the Taman Mahatma Gandhi school in Jakarta and Bali are not trustworthy, are these two schools linked together?

[Mr Cleaves]

It was a senior official in Immigrasi, who works both sides of the fence, who informed us that there are a number of cases involving EF and their expat teachers pending in Depnakad, the labour relations division of the Manpower ministry.

Not having the inside track on EF, I can't say with any certainty which ones are involved. However, there are a couple of pointers to consider.

1. EF is a franchise operation and many 'branches' are grouped together with a common owner, e.g. (Tebet, Bogor, Menteng), (West Jakarta), (Surabaya, Bali). Please don't lambast me if I'm wrong on the details ~ the majority of EF operations here are good employers and if you're young and footloose are an excellent way to start one's TEFLing career.

2. There is an Indonesia-Singapore Education Group, or 'mafia' as i've heard it described. There are personnel connections, probably informal, between UPI and SIS and a number of National Plus schools. Given the source of much of the investment that has gone into the 'education' sector recently, it seems possible that some EF franchise holders are in the loop. This need not be a bad thing; after all there is a gossip grapevine among TEFLers in town.

If there is the Singaporean curriculum in a National Plus school, particularly one offering a 'Christian' education, then it does seem that there is more of a chance of expat exploitation. There are some honourable exceptions, predominantly among those paying dollar salaries.

Schools operated by the 'mafia' practice a 'Dutch' auction system whereby new recruits have to negotiate their salaries. By law, there should be a salary scale, which, of course, is fairer on teaching staff. The lack of one leads to pettiness and a distinct lack of teamwork. Couple this with a management that is not transparent, never puts decisions in writing and is seen to be vindictive, then you have an atmosphere of fear.

UPI has had 5 teacher co-ordinators in just 3 years, some 20+ teachers have left - NONE on good terms with management, and those that remain are scared to go in the office in case they too will lose their jobs.

As for the Taman Mahatma Gandhi schools, all I've heard is that their salaries are quite low and they may be under-resourced, but please don't quote me on that.

I also can't comment on schools in China, except to say that cultural expectations might not be familiar.

[Mr Cleaves]

F., the teacher at the centre of the SIS case, has informed me that I've put up the wrong URL about his case. Sorry.

The summary is at http://hukumonline.com/detail.asp?id=16842&cl=Berita .

[ReveurGAM]

Mr. Cleaves, thank you for this info! I'm an ex-SIS employee and I'm happy to see them paying the piper after the crap my friends and I put up with! I wish I had the money to hire a lawyer to sue SIS, too!

Glenn

[Mr Cleaves]

ReveurGam, and any others who think they have a legal grievance.

As another UPI teacher has said, 'half a loaf is better than no bread', so send me a Private Message by clicking on my name - Mr Cleaves in the left column, and I can pass on the name of a good lawyer. It need not cost a lot, perhaps Rp.5-10 million plus a percentage, which would cost less than 'half a loaf'.

And one last thing in case I lose all credibility through a spelling mistake: where I've written Depnakad, it should be Depnaker, which stands for Departemen Tenaga Kerja, the Department of Manpower.