Job Discussion Forums

[normanwesss]

BEWARE of ECA GuangZhou!
Owner: Kevie
Assistant: Annie
Web: www.52eca.org
Location: Line 3, kecun metro stop

If you ever are unfortunate to apply for a job at ECA be warned ALL OF HIS CONTRACTS are ILLEGAL. Contracts must follow the Chinese Education Department guidelines set out here www.safea.gov.cn. While he may state that his contract is with you and his client schools are not directly in charge of you, this is of course a lie. Kevie CAN NOT employ you as he doesn't have the license, but what he will do is try to get you to work on a tourist visa or F visa illegally. If you do have a work visa already be careful, he has been known to disappear with people's salary or will try to retain it to bully you into staying with him. If you do become close to your particular school, you may also find he is retaining roughly 40% of your salary every month as his commission. Again this is an illegal practice and unless you discuss with the school they will believe he is paying you well. Also expect to be ignored, although he says he is your agent, no problems that may arise will be sorted by him, he just hopes you can stay so that the money can continue to roll in.

If you wish to see for yourself then I suggest you go to his office, you should ask him why he is not located in an official business district like proper schools such as EF and inquire as to the full process of the working visa. Z visa. You may then compare his contract with the SAFEA guidelines and see if he has all the necessary official licenses. Do not be surprised when he starts to stutter and wriggle or give you excuses such as "this is the way things are done in China" or "you don't understand".

BE SAFE AND ENSURE YOU DON'T GET DEPORTED/FINED. WORK WITH REAL COMPANIES ON A REAL VISA. DO NOT ACCEPT ANYTHING LESS, IT ISN'T WORTH IT. I.E. AVOID ECA

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[igorG]

ECA is an agency. Agencies, in my humble opinion, should neither pay FTs salaries nor arrange their legal or illegal work permits. To my knowledge, there are schools that aren't with the infamous SAFEA organization and therefore they offer their employment agreements only. Otherwise, FTs may end up with both contracts ridiculously. However, if an agent finds you a job in school that does not have a legal permit to hire foreign teachers, s/he ought to be liable in some way and the forum needs to know that.

I am sorry for your trouble

[LanGuTou]

Confused!

This guy appears to be nothing more than a recruiter. Therefore, why would he issue the contracts anyway? The institution or school that he introduces you to should issue the contract and it should be them that arrange the 'Z' visa.

Also, unless you are a fully licensed and registered freelancer (of which there are very few in China), how can you already have a work permit? Right to work is specific to the contracted work place. Even if you have an active RP in your passport, it will become null and void when you change employer. If by some chance you are a fully registered freelancer, there is nothing that he can do to withhold your right to work. In those circumstances, you can just get up and walk away.

[Brian Hugh]

What's a contract? You have to know the people your dealing with in CHina.
If the contract is broken you get to pay a lawyer 20,000 rmb to collect what 10,000 or your 6,000 airline fee?