Korean Job Discussion Forums

articulate_ink · Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2007 12:44 am Post subject: Uni job pay cut?

I was hoping I would not have to post something like this, but my pay seems to have been cut. My university contract stipulates 16 hours (in 8 sections) of conversational English. I chose to teach on Friday mornings, not a popular time of day to begin with. My uni's English department has restricted English majors from taking these general courses, preferring to channel these students into the major classes instead, and as a result, enrollment has dropped. The second of my two Friday classes was cut, and no one in Academic Affairs informed me. (It's a small university, btw. It's not as if nobody knows who I am.) My pay (payday is the 15th for some reason) seems to be 1/8 lower... also, no explanation, no warning. I've e-mailed a quick message to someone in HR to ask what's going on.

Although the contract states a certain number of hours, it doesn't stipulate paying me less if classes have to be closed due to lack of enrollment. (My classes on other days of the week are overflowing.) And I'm paid during breaks, when I'm not teaching at all. I know this is Korea, the Land Where Logic Goes to Die, but how on earth can they justify paying me less during the semester than when I'm not working?

Feel free to have a laugh (I'd chuckle if it weren't happening to me), but can anyone suggest a corrective course of action (other than leaving the country, which I aim to do in about 10 months)? Where money matters are concerned, I tend to go from zero to meltdown in two seconds flat. I'd like to have a plan in mind as I go forward with this. Has this happened to anyone else?

SuperHero · Joined: 10 Dec 2003 Location: Superhero Hideout

labor board.

the_beaver · Joined: 15 Jan 2003

If they did cut your pay you should complain.

But, there are other possibilities. My university takes a larger chunk of health coverage out every 3 or 4 months based on some arcane formula. Could be a one-month and one-off deduction.

boyne11 · Joined: 08 Jul 2007

angelgirl · Joined: 28 Jan 2006

I like to see you go to the Labour Board to request a clarification. Using the word 'complain' sets a confrontational tone.

This happened to me this semester. A three hour grad class was cancelled (without notice) at the end of week two. This means that I prepared for the 3 hr x 16 week semester during the summer, and taught the class. The Dean has not told me the reason for the cancelation.

To me IT is about the money, I'm NOT a volunteer, but it's also about respecting my work.

But me thinks I ask too much.

I'm not going to resign at this well known foreign language university, the Administration would get rid of us all, if they could.

I will not be treated like as disposible or invisible.

yingwenlaoshi · Joined: 12 Feb 2007 Location: ... location, location!

I wouldn't run to the labor board right away. That's foolish. Labor board is last resort. Here is where you're convincing powers come in. Easy because you're right and they're wrong.

"Uh, excuse me, but why the fk did you pay me less..."

hogwonguy1979 · Joined: 22 Dec 2003 Location: the racoon den

other universities are doing this, people losing classes for low enrollments and having their pay docked despite their contracts saying nothing about this

boyne11 · Joined: 08 Jul 2007

Typhoon · Joined: 29 May 2007 Location: Daejeon

My uni just asks us to work the extra classes next semester for no overtime payment to even things out. They usually forget by the time next semester rolls around though. Even if they didn't forget it is a pretty fair way to deal with the situation. The uni doesn't get hurt and the teacher doesn't either. I would suggest this idea...it is fair for all involved.

Young FRANKenstein · Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2007 11:37 pm Post subject:

FistFace · Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2007 4:17 am Post subject:

Our uni just raised our newbie base pay from 2.1 to 2.4 this semester.

They felt they had to do this, because they couldn't hire qualified candidates to work here.

And we're in Seoul!

Just for the thread's sake, our OT is time and a half. We get 30,000 an hour for extra morning/late evening classes. Some of us here like that. Others don't. Depends on if you mind working a wide split on what would otherwise be your day off.

articulate_ink · Posted: Fri Sep 28, 2007 2:57 am Post subject:

The saga continues. The head of the English department at my uni has looked into this situation on my behalf, and it turns out two separate things are going on. At first she told me I hadn't gotten a pay cut, but then she qualified it. The imbecile in Academic Affairs responsible for closing my class saw fit to stop paying me for 1 of the overtime classes I teach for the English department. His logic (and if this doesn't perfectly exemplify Korean managerial thinking, I don't know what does) was that I was working two hours less, so he could just take the money out of one of the courses for which I am paid by the hour. Never mind that I'm paid for those courses are paid via a separate funding source, aka the English department... whose money he didn't have the authority to interfere with. Two hours less is two hours less, right? The Powers That Be over in the English department are not happy with him for doing that, not just because he screwed me but because he egregiously overstepped his bounds. So technically my salary wasn't cut, because I was paid the full base salary. But that's just semantics, because instead I was not paid for a class that I actually taught!

The department head proposed letting me make up for it by teaching an extra course the next semester. Other posts here have mentioned this, and while I don't like the thought of an even busier schedule next spring, otherwise I think it's a reasonable solution. Especially if they forget. Shame it wasn't offered to me. Which is another point brought up in my meeting with the Powers That Be last week: I should have been given the option.

Then there's the bill for my utilities. I live in a faculty apartment. What I originally thought had been a pay cut was, in fact, a (roughly) 300,000 won deduction from my pay because of my utility usage. That's something else I learned from the department head. WTF? It's never been that high before. In fact, it's never been high enough for me to NOTICE before. (I don't get pay stubs. My uni does everything online, which is probably great if you are fluent in Korean, which I am not.)

Last week, there was a meeting between the Powers That Be and the dean of Academic Affairs, concerning my pay and my utilities. Some decision will be made, but I don't know what it is yet. The Chuseok holiday has put everything on hold. In the meantime, I'm trying not to catastrophize. I have a good relationship with the English department, and the professors there will do what they can. The uni's administrators are a different matter, however: this isn't the first time they've screwed things up for me before finally and clumsily sort of putting things right.

On the other hand, well, that's about 600,000 won I should have been paid, but wasn't. So much for this month's savings goals. I'm waiting to see what happens. Is there going to be a satisfactory solution? Do I go to the Labor Board? Or do I say 'fcuk this' and look for a job elsewhere for next semester? I'm hating this because until now the uni has been a good place to work. On the other hand, I was planning to leave Korea next summer anyway, so the idea of doing so several months sooner isn't exactly unappealing after all this.

spyro25 · Joined: 23 Nov 2004

our place has a different way of screwing you out of your pay - not including the classes you missed on public holidays to be included in your total hours for overtime! our place requires 80 hours a month, but if there are public holidays, then the classes that you would have taken on those dates don't count towards that figure of 80

so for those of us already working a lot of overtime (split shifts for me) those days 'off' become very costly, often wiping out 6-8 hours per day off - so if my total hours would have been in the 100's, but a month like choosok comes around - then that total drops back to about 80 - even though i worked like an SOB in the days around the choosok holiday all the same! its almost like we pay to have those days off - when other teachers who don't want to work extra classes still collect their full pay. we are being punished in effect for wanting to open extra classes and help out the place as much as we can.

Young FRANKenstein · Posted: Fri Sep 28, 2007 4:18 am Post subject:

Hyeon Een · Joined: 24 Jun 2005

Regarding the $300 utilities: At the last university I worked I was in a 'faculty apartment'. Our utilities were billed anually, in advance, which was about 600 and something dollars. Perhaps you are being billed for 6 months of utilities rather than a monthly fee? For me, paying the $600 odd dollars sucked. But it did mean that my monthly electricity+gas+internet+building maintenance etc. only worked out at about 35k a month, which is pretty low.

If you were billed 300k for one month, then something is wrong I suspect.

Regarding the Uni paycut: At my last university they asked me to re-sign. They showed me the new contract. It contained a paycut of about 10 or 15%. I didn't take it.

(The reason for the paycut was due to my small university 'merging' with a large university. We were to be put on the payscale of the large, less generous university rather than keeping the current one.)