Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Medic]

Found this interesting spiel on the school

http://wanawatu1.blogspot.com/

[Medic]

Apparently there is a sister school to the Gwangju school.

Guy at the school was hurt in China, and was requesting medical assistance from the Holleys. I hope he got it.

http://www.thejeonjuhub.com/archives/index.html

Chester Needham in Hospital
{Jan 28, 2008}
Chester Needham (Minnesota, Jeonbuk Foreign Language School, guitarist: Big in Jeonju) is recovering from disk replacement surgery in Jesus Hospital. The surgery was successful and his wife and two daughters are by his side whenever possible. The injury was sustained in China while on vacation and the school's initial response was that their insurance does not cover the very expensive surgery. Hopefully, the school's celebrity owner Robert Holly, will learn of their situation and find some way to help this family. Chester is in room 711, and visiting hours are not restricted.

[Sushi]

Looks like the guy who owns the school isn't a lawyer. Reading the blog it seems that he refuses to name the university where he studied law.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

That wasn't CPN's school by any chance, was it?

[Sushi]

On reading the blog it seems that CPN was a teacher at the school. He taught there , before he fled to Thailand where he was nabbed on Oct 19th or thereabouts.

That's quite a legacy for the school to have to live with. Reminds me of a posting by someone teaching at a Korean school where a nortorious serial killer was once a student. I vaguely remmember reading that the killer actualy ate or incinerated his victims , merely because they were wealthy. The expat teacher just happened to overhear Korean teachers talking about it.

Unfortunately for the school, whenever people in Korea think of it they will immediatly associate it with CPN (Christopher Paul Neil, the pedophile)

Was doing a search on the school and found this interesting photo

Teachers are bolting the door to prevent reporters entering. There are other photos of the school there as well.

http://www.daylife.com/photo/0dih6tt6ZYdFR/gwangju

[Len8]

The owner is a lawyer, but doesnt advertise it on his school's site. He seems to be very low key about it. He should put his details on his school site and get credit where credit deserves. His Law alma mater is the University of West Virginia, and he passed the bar exam for that state as well. Now if I was him I would have that on his school homepage in Upper Upper case letters

Should help him attract a lot more students to his school as well.

Still find it weird that he would seem to downplay where he studied law, and where he graduated from as such. There was a posting in which it was stated that he graduated from the university of West Virginia and passed the bar exam of West Virginia, but which was subseqently changed to say he went to graduate school and studied law, and then passed the bar exam.

What's happening there. Can't imagine some stranger wanting to got to some obscure posting and change someone elses details.

[Sushi]

Interesting take on how the Gwangju Foreign school handled the late start with the national Pension from the Blog Mytime

"The school has only recently adopted the national pension for it's employees. By law it should have been implemented long ago. National pension offices can be a bit slack at times, and overlook certain buisnesses. Maybe it did this with Gwangju Foreign school. Who knows, but for an Institution that supposedly prides itself as an International school ,the laws of the land with regards to financial advantage for it's employees should have been obeyed.
Hogwans and English Institutes always find ways to skirt the law and exploit their employees, but for Gwangju Foreign school to do this is unacceptable. ( otherwise it's nothing but second rate and money grubbing ) We the teachers all had a meeting with Mrs Holley about the national pension plan, and she had the temerity to say that permission was given for the school to not have to offer the National Pension. The only way a buisness can get out of having to offer the national pension is if it has an alternative scheme. The school had no such scheme, so there is no way it could have legally sidestepped it's obligations. Now only a cretin ,retard, brainless dickhead would stand infront of her employees, and brazenly lie about getting her special permission when in fact no such permission to suspend the national pension was ever given. All the staff felt very uncomfortable when they heard her diatribe.
Stone the crows. It just goes to show how little class the Holley's have. I don't even think they know what the word class means. Totaly lacking in being professional too. More than anything it shows that their priorities are in to making money however which way they can and not in being educators.
A provision is for the employer to match the certain percentage (4.5%)deducted from one's paycheck for the National Pension so that come time for individuals from Canada, the U.S. and a few other countries to leave the country they recieve back all deductions doubled.
In effect it's obvious that the Holley's didn't offer the national pension plan from it's inception, because they were too cheap to make the matching contributions for the pension deductions.
It begs the question of why are they offering the National Pension now. Did President No Mu Young ring them up, and tell them to get on the ball, or are they facing an audit of some kind. It would sure be nice to know.
There is a lot of money those employees from Canada, and the U.S. who had been at the school for over three years could have accumulated if the Holleys had had the National pension. I have worked at a place that had the National pension plan, and my co-workers from Canada recieved lump sum payments of $5000 each for just over 3 years work. They recieved this on top of their severance. It's really low down scum that will deny it's employees the benefits that are theirs by right. Holleys are too busy lining their own pockets, and breaking the law in the process to be worried about matters like this that benefit their emoloyees.
Downside of this shemozzle is "If they can lie about this, what else have they been lying about"

Don't know why someone who prides himself with his TV goody good image would make a slip like this. Doesn't he know that people who have been in Korea are going to savage anyone who tries to pull a fast one with regards to the pension. Or is this whole thing symptomatic of the way he does buisness anyway.

On reading the blog a little further there is description of how he runs his English camp without paying the teachers, and he flounts the law there too. He threatens to withhold severance from people who don't do his camp, and that's rotten. The camp isn't even in the contract. He gets a verbal agreement from his teachers only, so it's not really binding. He then threatens anyone who doesn't do the camp with loss of severance. Seems as though he gets away with it, because the teachers are all newbies, and aren't aware that they can stand up to him. Boy the Holleys are something else. He probably doesn't put the camp in the contract, with all the conditions otherwise he wouldn't get any teachers.

[Len8]

Gwangju foreign school and pension

From another blog

There was a post about the Gwangju Foreign school and their handling of the pension on another site. The school never had the pension until recently. So in a sense the owners of the school have been flouting the law for a good 8 years. Hardly surprising considering their track record. Mrs Holley in a meeting with the staff tried to explain it away by saying the school was given permission to not have it. Mr Holley who supposedly has a legal background should have been there to support her but wasn't. Now no body gives an institute permission to not offer the pension to it's staff, so what she said was total Bull---t . The only way a Korean buisness or academy gets exempted is if an alternative plan is used. Of course there wasn't any such alternative plan at Gwangju Foreign school, so Mrs Holley swung a fast one over on unsuspecting teachers who were more concerned about hanging on to their jobs than challenging the issue.

At the meeting Mrs Holley did offer back payments to those who requested it, but no documentation or forms were provided for the teachers to show what the options available really were. In reality the teachers should have taken the owners up on the offer and requested that they paye the 4.5%of all of their previous earnings. Unfortunately for the teachers this was glossed over by the Mrs Holley in such a way as to make it appear to be too complicated to consider. Teachers didn't get proper representation to ensure that they got a fair deal, nor were they aware of just what was happening. This was probably what the Holleys wanted, and is just another exploitation job by unscrupulous owners. Seems to be the grain at a lot of places. A little dissappointing to see this side of the Holleys especially since they profess to be upright church going citizens and pillars of the community.

I find it incredible that the the other owner Mr Robert Holley who professes to have passed the bar exam for the state of West Virginia should allow his wife to get set up so that she would commit a form of purgery. She lied like she always does, and was quite blatant about it. No oath needed for her infractions, because they're too bloody obvious. Now what the hell kind of lawyer would allow that in a buisness he is associated with. I am wondering if there is such a term as a shonkey lawyer, because it's certainly applicable here.

[Paddycakes]

[Sushi]

Found this on MYTIME. Shows an excellent level of cunning and craftiness


"Manipulation of teachers by Holleys at Gwangju Foreign school "

The school runs an English camp at the school in the summers. It's not in the teachers contract, but Holley's ask the teachers at the initial interview if they would be willing to work at their English camp. All teachers agree to it of course, because they don't think anything of it at the time. What the Holleys don't conveniently mention is that they will with hold severance if the teacher doesn't do the camp. The teachers learn this later from the other teachers who have been there a little longer. If the camp was in the contract then fair enough, but it's not, so the request by the Holleys at the interview is not really binding. All a teacher has to do at Gwangju foreign school to get severance is teach his or her assigned classes for the duration of their contract, and nothing more. Now the labour board in Gwangju is very willing to step in and mediate to ensure a school honours it's contract, and they would come down hard on the Holleys for with holding severance from someone who refused to do the camp. Unfortunately for the teachers at Gwangju foreign school, and fortunately for the Holleys the teachers are insecure and are afraid to make a stand. It's understandable, because many don't want jeopardize their jobs , and are caught in a limbo of not knowing wether they will win their case or not. I don't know why the Holleys don't put the camp in their contract to legitmize it, so they don't have to resort to subterfuge. Sure beats me. Any way they are aware of the insecurity of the teachers, and for some unknown reason they seem to feel it's better to underhandedly bleed them for as much extra money as possible.

There is one teacher at the school who refused to do the camp. I gathered from talking to him that he had to sign a shorter contract so that the Holleys would not have to pay him severance. He should have contended the issue, and demanded a full years contract, but then again maybe the owners might not have hired him if he had. They would have had to let the teacher go, rather than let him receive severance without doing the camp because he would have set off alarm bells for all the other teachers who might decide not to do the camp as well. Geeze the owners got the place sown up real good to avoid the normal legitimate payements that they should make to their teachers.

I guess you have to hand it to the Holleys for their being shrewed. Thatt's buisness I guess, but there is a general code of behaviour with the well known schools that stops them from stooping to this level. Maybe Gwangju Foreign school should borrow from the code of the better behaved Institutions, because it might just come a gutser otherwise. Very wishful thinking.

[Sushi]

This is from another site

Don't know why parents don't send their kids to Korean International schools. Half their incomes are from parents wanting their kids to learn English. By rights International schools aren't supposed to accept kids unless their passport shows that they have lived abroad in a foreign country for 5 years, however most will enroll any one who has cash to pay regardless of what their passports show.

They all have very large ESL departments in fact. I tutored some children in Seoul whose older brother was at Gwangju Foreign School. He was sent their specifically to learn English, and had only been abroad during the odd summer vacation.

[cangel]

Here's the dope on Holley. Seems he hasn't paid his dues and thus is currently suspended.

http://www.wvbar.org/barinfo/mdirectory/detail.php?ID=1769

[CentralCali]

Don't you mean his membership is suspended? Anyway, the dude's been naturalized a citizen of South Korea. Didn't he also renounce his US citizenship for that purpose? Can foreign nationals be admitted to the Bar in the US?

[Medic]

The taking out of Korean citizenship, having your passport torn up and renouncing your own citizenship aint no big deal. You will always be a citizen of your country of birth, unless of course you got kicked out of your counrtry. All you have to do is go home and apply for a new passport.

Korea or wherever isn't going to be any the wiser for it.

[krats1976]