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Korean Job Discussion Forums
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Ilsanman
Joined: 15 Aug 2003
Location: Bucheon, Korea
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 Posted: Sat Dec 20, 2003 6:54 am Post subject: yes |
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| What's this? Did hell freeze over? Someone is agreeing with Gord? I am going to read my bible now, as judgment day must be here.............. |
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GoshiwonGuy
Joined: 31 Oct 2003
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| Posted: Sat Dec 20, 2003 7:04 am Post subject: |
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This thread has a nasty tone & the OP invited it with his provocative subject header -- guns ablazin'! going postal on those hagwon jerks! |
Yeah, you're right. Whatever was I thinking. It's not necessary to look out for ones interests. If someone screws you in Korea it's best to just thank them kindly and it's back to the back of the bus.It's my fault that I'm not a Korean. I should accept everything because I deserve what I get. If I didn't come here. Nothing bad could have happened...
Sorry.On second thought, If I'm being screwed I think I'll try to screw them back. It shouldn't be a one sided affair. If you do something to someone don't expect their will be nothing coming back your way.
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Everyone who ends up with an unscrupulous director did their homework poorly. |
Everyone? Are you sure about that? Do you have much life experience?
Many bad things happen to people who don't deserve it and vice versa. I don't think we're all masters of our own fate although poor planning will definitely result in poor outcomes more often.
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A good number of newcomers go way overboard nitpicking contract details & end up shi*tting in their own nest, souring otherwise workable situations. |
As a blanket statement it sure sounds reasonable. Except, when you agree to something I suppose that you should honor your agreement. I can't just show up late when I want or deliver a poor service and they shouldn't be able to give me inferior housing or nickel and dime me from 2 mil to 1.8 through expenses that they should have paid for (income is an example) such as Visa run or my buying furnishings for their apartment.
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Gord's remarks are valid. |
Some are. Hardly All.
GG |
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lush72
Joined: 18 Aug 2003
Location: I am Penalty Kick!
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| Posted: Sat Dec 20, 2003 7:19 am Post subject: |
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Thank GOD I do not have to deal with retarded hogwon contracts anymore!
GG- I wish I could offer you some advice here to help you, but I cant. You did bring up some good points- I hope other posters can offer some insight here.
Gord- while I do not disagree with the facts you presented I strongly disagree with the TONE you used in doing that. Lets keep it civil in here, cant we? I KNOW you must have realized the OP was reacting this way due to frustration and anger- so why dump fuel on the fire? The expat community here is lonely enough- why further isolate anyone? |
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jajdude
Joined: 18 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sat Dec 20, 2003 7:52 am Post subject: |
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| I figure full time for teaching English means 30 hours per week, whether or not Saturdays are involved. Above 30 means overtime pay. I think we all should be agreement on this. |
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The Man known as The Man
Joined: 29 Mar 2003
Location: 3 cheers for Ted Haggard oh yeah!
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| Posted: Sat Dec 20, 2003 1:17 pm Post subject: |
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| canuckistan wrote: |
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| Gord whats wrong with you man |
He is the eternal devil's advocate. Not particularly helpful in this circumstance however. |
No I found his post quite helpful. |
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Down from Above
Joined: 27 Apr 2003
Location: Naju
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| Posted: Sat Dec 20, 2003 2:46 pm Post subject: Re: yes |
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| Ilsanman wrote: |
| What's this? Did hell freeze over? Someone is agreeing with Gord? I am going to read my bible now, as judgment day must be here.............. |
No, I find Gord usually presents common sense. He's right more times than he's wrong.
Though not in this particular case, however. Korea's customary 5.5 day workweek has no bearing on the OP's contract.
I agree with Schwa, though, about the OP's tone. |
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Gord
Joined: 25 Feb 2003
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| Posted: Sat Dec 20, 2003 5:00 pm Post subject: Re: yes |
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| Down from Above wrote: |
No, I find Gord usually presents common sense. He's right more times than he's wrong.
Though not in this particular case, however. Korea's customary 5.5 day workweek has no bearing on the OP's contract. |
The issue raised was the "the law" requires 10 days vacation per year, and that the OP wasn't getting these days of vacation thus some law was being broken. This is entirely untrue which is why I spoke up and noted that the poster was indeed getting more vacation time than required by law.
Korean law is pretty simple. You either work 5.5 days a week on average and you must be given 24 vacation days, or you work less and the government has no minimum holiday requirement. It's like the severance pay. You either work a year and you qualify for a severance payment, or you don't. There is no goverment requirement that a severance package be paid for being most of the way through a year. Pregnant or you're not.
In Canada, an employer must allocate a 4% bonus on wages and allow for an additional 4% time bonus to be used as a vacation which works out to be 2 weeks off per year. The amount a person works has no bearing on when vacation time is earned.
Vacaction time is done quite differently here than back home, and this leads to much confusion for foreign workers.
The 10 days vacation thing mentioned is simpy customary. Some schools offer more, some offer less. Either we accept we are full time employees on a 5.5 day schedule and our 24 vacation days are used to reduce ourselves to a five day work week with everything else above that being a bonus, or we accept we are working a plain five day work week and any vacation time is bonus. It's whatever makes us sleep better at night.
Most schools are pretty small operations and won't fall under the new 5-day work week laws until 2008 or so. At which time they will be required, by law, to have a five day work and offer time off beyond that. In the future, the original poster's concerns will be valid. For now, they are not as legally even his contract with "only five days of vacation" is legal and is five days more than is required by law. |
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prairieboy
Joined: 14 Sep 2003
Location: The batcave.
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| Posted: Sat Dec 20, 2003 6:36 pm Post subject: |
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In Canada, an employer must allocate a 4% bonus on wages and allow for an additional 4% time bonus to be used as a vacation which works out to be 2 weeks off per year. The amount a person works has no bearing on when vacation time is earned.
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This is only partially true as in Canada, the labour laws are determined and enforced individually by each province. There is no Federal law covering this as Labour laws fall under the jurisdiction of provincial powers.
So in, "Canada, an employer must allocate a 4% bounus on wages and allow for an additional..." is a generalized statement that is not entirely true for all provinces as they can at any time change their own labour laws, such as the minimum wage, which differs from province to province.
I've only worked in two different provinces and for those provinces Gord's statement is true. I don't personally know about the other 8 provinces nor do I know about the standards in the 3 territories. |
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Gord
Joined: 25 Feb 2003
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prairieboy
Joined: 14 Sep 2003
Location: The batcave.
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| Posted: Sat Dec 20, 2003 7:13 pm Post subject: |
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Gord,
Read the definitions and interpretation clause. Section 2.
Definitions
2. In this Act,
federal work, undertaking or business
�entreprises...�
"federal work, undertaking or business" means any work, undertaking or business that is within the legislative authority of Parliament, including, without restricting the generality of the foregoing, ....
There is nothing here that interferes with the provincial jurisdiction over labour rights and legislation. This law is applicable to federal projects and those that are deemed important to the federal government, such as a federally funded project.
Maybe you should have read this before you jumped the gun dude. |
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TheUrbanMyth
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: Retired
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| Posted: Sat Dec 20, 2003 7:15 pm Post subject: Re: yes |
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| Gord wrote: |
| Down from Above wrote: |
No, I find Gord usually presents common sense. He's right more times than he's wrong.
Though not in this particular case, however. Korea's customary 5.5 day workweek has no bearing on the OP's contract. |
The issue raised was the "the law" requires 10 days vacation per year, and that the OP wasn't getting these days of vacation thus some law was being broken. This is entirely untrue which is why I spoke up and noted that the poster was indeed getting more vacation time than required by law.
Korean law is pretty simple. You either work 5.5 days a week on average and you must be given 24 vacation days, or you work less and the government has no minimum holiday requirement. It's like the severance pay. You either work a year and you qualify for a severance payment, or you don't. There is no goverment requirement that a severance package be paid for being most of the way through a year. Pregnant or you're not.
In Canada, an employer must allocate a 4% bonus on wages and allow for an additional 4% time bonus to be used as a vacation which works out to be 2 weeks off per year. The amount a person works has no bearing on when vacation time is earned.
Vacaction time is done quite differently here than back home, and this leads to much confusion for foreign workers.
The 10 days vacation thing mentioned is simpy customary. Some schools offer more, some offer less. Either we accept we are full time employees on a 5.5 day schedule and our 24 vacation days are used to reduce ourselves to a five day work week with everything else above that being a bonus, or we accept we are working a plain five day work week and any vacation time is bonus. It's whatever makes us sleep better at night.
Most schools are pretty small operations and won't fall under the new 5-day work week laws until 2008 or so. At which time they will be required, by law, to have a five day work and offer time off beyond that. In the future, the original poster's concerns will be valid. For now, they are not as legally even his contract with "only five days of vacation" is legal and is five days more than is required by law. |
It might be a case of misunderstanding. Do these vacation days INCLUDE national holidays? I get 25 days of "vacation" at my place...but was told 15 of these days were national holidays (Chusok, Lunar New Year...etc.) The OP may have thought that vacation meant in ADDITION to the national holidays. |
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prairieboy
Joined: 14 Sep 2003
Location: The batcave.
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| Posted: Sat Dec 20, 2003 7:24 pm Post subject: |
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Check out the Constitution Act, sections 91 and 92 for division of legislative powers.
http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/const/c1867_e.html#distribution
If it's something that is not explicity stated as being a Federal matter then by default it is a provincial matter. Only the salaries and renumeration of federal civil servants is covered under section 91 and federal undertakings.
The rest is up to each province and is a matter of provincial jurisdiction. |
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Gord
Joined: 25 Feb 2003
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| Posted: Sat Dec 20, 2003 7:41 pm Post subject: |
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| prairieboy wrote: |
Gord,
Read the definitions and interpretation clause. Section 2. |
And upon further research, it would appear that vacation time does fall under provincial laws. I knew things like minimum wage were provincial, but I thought vacation time was federal. Things I learn years after it's no longer an issue. But then that's why I used an accountant at my business.
| TheUrbanMyth wrote: |
| It might be a case of misunderstanding. Do these vacation days INCLUDE national holidays? I get 25 days of "vacation" at my place...but was told 15 of these days were national holidays (Chusok, Lunar New Year...etc.) The OP may have thought that vacation meant in ADDITION to the national holidays. |
The 25 is really 10 thing is just a charade. No one ever tried to do that to me, but if they had I would have started calling the person in charge of scheduling Willis, and asking what he was talking about. "Work for us, and get 104 days off a year!" with the 104 days off being the weekends. Uncool way to advertise.
Sadly, in Korea if a holiday falls on a regular day off, there is no credit for it. If I recall correctly, last year had a substantial number of holidays on Saturday which amused me greatly.
As for the OP, it sounded as though to me he though the law required that he get two weeks vacation time above and beyond any regular holidays and was distraught that he was only getting one week. |
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GoshiwonGuy
Joined: 31 Oct 2003
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| Posted: Sat Dec 20, 2003 8:56 pm Post subject: |
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As for the OP, it sounded as though to me he though the law required that he get two weeks vacation time above and beyond any regular holidays and was distraught that he was only getting one week. |
Gord, although I appreciate all of your input it's your mischaracterisation (sp) of the situation that especially irks me.
I wasn't and am not 'distraught' about anything.I'm not angry if anyone gets a better deal than me on anything, and the vacation pay was not the main issue. It was one point that I incorrectly offered as an example of a further way in which my employer was screwing me, but which is apparently not.
It is obvious to me that they are screwing me in multiple other ways though and I expect that they will likely screw me in the future, on something or another. That's why I started this thread.
I want to to publicise both legitimate and shady ways of recource. Hence my reference to playing 'dirty pool'. I'm always inclined to go the most civil and legal way first but if I am being screwed in underhanded or overt ways just because they think I'm powerless then I'd love to show them the error in their thinking.
I am somewhat powerless but because I always try to gather as much information as possible on many different issues I usually do alright. And I take serious offence to people screwing me out of money that I worked hard for because when they screw me they take food and diapers away from my family.
And I'm not talking about screwing people or trying to get over on people. I'm talking about getting what I am owed in the most A-Z fashion. I've never been screwed this hard in Canada because I understand the culture, laws etc. It's more of an even playing field. The lame extent that I would go to get what I'm owed here pales compared to what I'd do in Canada.
If someone in Canada tried to physically strongarm me, I've got recourse. I can protect myself. I know the law. I know how far I can go to protect myself.
If someone tried to screw me in a legal sense I can go through the courts.
If someone tried to renege on money owed I can get someone to collect. If you owed me $10,000 I get a collector-now you owe me $20,000 and the collector takes half. Your problem you tried to screw me. the point being you pay me or the hospital.
If someone screws me I'll put a PI on them and get dirt that I can use for leverage. Cheating, scoring drugs, prostitutes.
If an employer started to rip me off in my Province, I'd take note of any workplace violations and there'd be calls and letters to the Fire Department, City Hall, Health Department etc. Criminal issue, maybe the threat of going to the police would suffice. If I know the owner is screwing the taxman, it's Revenue Canada time.
I will try to learn the equivalent for Korea, and how it's done. It's a different country, culture and I hold a lesser place in this society but I'll do what I can.
And if anyone faults my approach, that's fine by me. I'll never screw someone but will never roll over when someone tries to get over on me. Sounds fair to me.
I ran across a couple of posts, in response to a query from someone who said their boss didn't and wouldn't pay them. Here are a couple of responses.I can't evaluate their effectiveness but they're food for thought:
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1) A note for all who have this problem. 99% of schools ripe of the tax man. Always take photo copies of the school student numbers. Do it with out them noticing, and when the big day arrives when they decide they don"t feel like giving you the money you worked for for the last 4 weeks, then simple say I will be sending a letter to the tax man!! Make sure if you have a school paid house that the info is not in it, becasue they will go in and search. Has worked before and will work again. If you don't pay tax in Korea it is very easy to lose everything!!!
2) well another idea is to go in there with a big stick and say pay up or better still call the taxation department and say yo utell them he is taking taxes out of peoples pay and not giving it to the goverment. most koreans are more affraid of the taxation then immigration.
3) Man, something very simple for you to do. You're going about it the wrong way. It's happened to me and it's happened to a friend of mine. We both did the same thing and got great results very quickly. Just make sure you have a copy of the students' addresses. Make a nice flyer about the school (not rude) explaining how they cheat the foreign teachers out of money and use that money for their own leisure. Explain how bad the school is (again, try not to be rude) and have it translated in Korean too. Stand outside your school and hand out flyers to everyone that passes by. You're not doing anything illegal and the boss can't do anything about it except to pay you rather promptly. They would rather pay than have such bad publicity and potentially lose all of their business. Like I said, you'll get great results and very quickly too. Mine came as soon as the owner saw what I was doing. Good luck in the future bro. PS. you tell the boss that you will send a copy of the letter to all of the students' parents at the end of the day. That's what the addresses are for.
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GG |
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Gord
Joined: 25 Feb 2003
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| Posted: Sat Dec 20, 2003 9:18 pm Post subject: |
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| GoshiwonGuy wrote: |
| I wasn't and am not 'distraught' about anything. |
My colourful use of words does not make you happy? Oh, ok. You were annoyed. Then you turned that frown upside down and made this thread to try and prevent evil from happening to others.
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| If someone tried to renege on money owed I can get someone to collect. If you owed me $10,000 I get a collector-now you owe me $20,000 and the collector takes half. Your problem you tried to screw me. the point being you pay me or the hospital. |
As someone who has sent many, many people to collections and been to court numerous times over debt collecting, let me assure you that you can't just up the amount owed because someone did not pay. Unless the person was advised of a pentalty prior to the debt being incurred, you cannot reclaim a higher amount simply because of the costs involved in closing the debt unless it is so ordered by the court.
A debt is a contract, and a contract needs consideration and communication. Telling a person after the fact that they owe more because they didn't pay on time is not a contact.
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If someone screws me I'll put a PI on them and get dirt that I can use for leverage. Cheating, scoring drugs, prostitutes.
If an employer started to rip me off in my Province, I'd take note of any workplace violations and there'd be calls and letters to the Fire Department, City Hall, Health Department etc. Criminal issue, maybe the threat of going to the police would suffice. If I know the owner is screwing the taxman, it's Revenue Canada time. |
I have no problem with trying to bring out the end of evil. My original issue was that you were citing things originally that were not evil. If, for example, you went to your boss demanding your ten days off instead of five or you would report him for something, that's extortion as he has done nothing wrong to you. I'm just saying that one should make sure all their ducks are in a row before they do that. Plus a school can also up the ante and have you blacklisted from Korea if they submit a claim of violence or the very believable "he was teaching privates". With illegal income, it's guilty until proven innocent. Personally, I prefer the subtle approach because it doesn't burn bridges.
For example, in Canada where taxes are much higher my family used to run a mini-storage as one of the businesses owned. We paid the manager a percentage of units rented that way he would actually help people and make sure the place was kept clean. He also got free housing. (hey, sounds like Korea!)
Eventually we had to get rid of him as things weren't working out. But because he had made less than minimum wage as an overall, he took us to the labour board over it. The rules had changed in B.C. and that we now had to ensure people on commission were paid at least minimum wage.
So we paid him the extra $800 or so he asked for (he had been there for about 18 months overall). Then we turned around and notified Revenue Canada that we were adding the new salary payment AND we were including the rent to his salary in our reporting. His taxable income jumped up an extra $9800 which meant he suddenly owed an extra $3000 in taxes as he not only had to pay tax on the new income, but it also pushed him into a higher tax bracket so he had to pay back taxes on what he had already paid tax on. And because a friend of the family works in Revenue Canada in the collections division, there wasn't any chance they would forget about him.
Sure, he got his money in taking us to the labour board because he thought we were taking advantage of him. But in the end he lost more than what he started with. The same applies here. When stepping up the ante, be careful because everyone has their little tricks that they can do when push comes to shove. |
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