Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Rumple]

I'd like to hear from the 7+ year veterans here. It seems to me that over the last few months, there's been more movement towards forming a teachers association than I've seen before. Is this accurate? Or is it like the ocean, where sometimes a wave gets big but always disappears back into the sea?

I know that a couple times in the past, teachers have gotten together, but never successfully (i.e for longer than a few months). But have those teachers' groups gotten this much press coverage, and recognition and dialog with government officials?

Something feels different about ATEK, but I haven't been around long enough to know for sure.

What's the good word?

[Voyeur]

Hopefully not: deportation

[TheUrbanMyth]

[bassexpander]

Well, it sounds pretty good so far. There appear to be some semi-organzied people behind it. I wouldn't call it a "movement" though.

[ttompatz]

Unless they are here on F5's and paid for their time in the "organization" it will be another short lived flash in the pan.

Temp workers don't associate well except at the pub on the weekend.

It is in conflict with their status of sojourn.

~100 members out of 17,000 LEGAL English teachers (not including F2/4/5s) is hardly a booming endorsement (.0085% of the Legal teachers in Korea). You can get a higher percentage of the LEGAL teachers at Gekos on a Saturday afternoon.

They certainly DON'T speak for me.

.

[Unposter]

I certainly hope ATEK knows what they are (doing) getting themselves into.

It is like the head student standing up in class and telling you that he can call all the students or take care of some situation for you. You think great.

Fromt this perspective, the Korean government must thing, "Great. ATEK is going to take care of our problems and manage the FTs for us...probably for free," not realizing that unlike in Korea where only a head student would make him or herself known if they were the head student, any Westerner might stand up and say anything.

There is a lot of politics in running a union, especially as diverse a lot as we are: nationalities, ties and interests to the country and paticular jobs, perceptions about the job, laws...even if we decided to vote on a leadership, factions and parties would be established.

ATEK obviously doesn't represent anyone but its members, and its members are a miniscule part of the ESL industry in Korea so far.

If I were them, I would start at least two seperate unions. One for public school teachers and one for university Instructors and Professors. At least, there would be more common interest in these groups but there would still be a lot of politics. And, I don't know how well ATEK will handle political stress once membership expands. They are going to need to reach out to different groups within the FT community here to find good people who represent different groups interests without sacrificing too much time and energy to the politics.

On the other hand, I do think that the Ministry of Education needs to bring in some "sensible" Native-speakers to work with them on how to make their programs work. As long as it is Koreans plan and FTs do, there will probably be a disconect. We need to be part of the decision making process the way unions eventually brought rank and file workers into some of the decision making processies. And, I'm sure that as far as the Ministry of Education is concerned ATEK is as good as anyone else. They certainly have little understanding of what goes on between us.

If ATEK can find common ground that most could agree upon, it has a chance. If it can't, it won't get much farther than they can B.S. themselves through.

[bassexpander]

If you don't want them speaking for you, then why not get involved?

Also, why do we hire one president? Or more congressmen? Why not have 10,000 presidents, or 1,000,000 congressmen, and improve the odds?

What percentage of the total population are the congressional officials in your own country?

And we're not even talking about that kind of power here.

Before you insist on pulling these people down, maybe you could get off of your collective butts and try to change something yourself? Of all of the people who use this board, and/or are teaching in Korea, I'd say these people deserve the right to represent teachers because they are at least getting off of their rears and TRYING to bring about change.

I'm sure whatever they'd be able to influence would only be a positive for us, anyway.

Korea has its share of lazy-assed low-lifes who couldn't function in society back home anyway. Now is the time for those people to either do something or shut their cake-holes.

[Ya-ta Boy]

I think they're off to a good start and deserve either support from us or silence, not criticism anyway. If they can get themselves into a position of being listened to, and LMB who has a foreign press secretary or something, seems to be open to outside information, then the better for all of us.

I'll go out on a limb here and predict that 2 out of 3 (I'm being generous) posts about them here at Dave's will be the usual sniping, whining, criticism and general negativity we read on every other Korean-related subject.

[ttompatz]

[yeremy]

If they know and stay in their place, they'll have a longer shelf life. Korea may very well be entering an anti-union period for the next five years, so it will be interesting to watch.

[babtangee]

Man, there are a lot of cynical-Sallys here today.

[bassexpander]

[ttompatz]

[babtangee]

Why are they going down hill? What are they doing wrong? Please explain.

[Binch Lover]

In defense of ttompatz, I would say that the amount of accurate advice he has given on this board outweighs anything those guys at ATEK have done.