Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Kelly1101]

I am having issues concerning my severance pay that is supposed to be issued to me upon completion of my contract. I was recently informed that I will not be getting my severance. This is due to the academies negligence. When I first arrived, I was told to hand over all bills, received at my residence, to the academy. They then would pay them and deduct it from my monthly salary. Every month there was an amount deducted, so I assumed everything was being taken care of. I never received a pay stub from them, so I never knew exactly what the deductions were for. My academy had 2 foreign teachers on their staff, one of whom just left. Before she left, we were told that for the whole year the amount for our bills, as well as pension and health insurance, were never deducted from our pay and that they were then in turn taking the total amount for the whole year from our severance. This left us stuck as we were counting on that severance. We trusted our academy and therefore assumed everything was being taken care of. We had no reason to suspect that at the end of the year, this would be the situation we'd be in. I think it's unfair that we have to suffer because the academy wasn't responsible enough to have everything taken care of. This is our first time in South Korea and we assumed that our place of work would hold up to its end of the contract.

What can I do?

[afsjesse]

My academy is doing the same thing to me. Except they told me upfront that they were saving all of my bills. Legally there's nothing you can do IMO because you would owe them that amount of money anyway. To my credit, I do have copies of most of my bills.

[Tobias]

Two of the world's most famous last words:

"I assumed...."

If any outfit pulled this kind of shit on me, I'd simply go to Japan, get the tourist visa, return to the neighborhood, and wait in a hotel for the next schmuck to arrive. Then I'd let the new person in on all the outfit's shenanigans. I'd have to wait at most a day or two.

[spliff]

Does it say in your contract they will do this. if not go to labor.

[Young FRANKenstein]

If they didn't pay the bills (a lie or your utils would have been cut) or medical or pension, what exactly were the deductions they made? Taxes? Or did they forget that too (I'd check on it before you find out in a couple months that you're hosed)?

[spliff]

Oh, they're hosed already. They just don't know how bad yet.

[Young FRANKenstein]

[A2Steve]

[sheba]

Firstly, how much were they deducting each month?
And if they werent paying your bills, pension, insurance etc then what were the deductions for?

As mentioned earlier, if your bills werent being paid, then your electricity etc would have been cut off months ago. There would have also been a lot of letters/phone calls about paying these bills.

When I got my insurance, I had to prepay 3 months before even being issued a booklet... Have you been to the doctor? if so, how much did it cost? Would be interesting to see if you were infact even registered. Or perhaps the school was busted for you not being registered and now they have a years backpayments. If you are from USA or Canada, I beleve you can get your pension reimbursed when you leave the country anyway (and if theyre going to deduct insurance and pension, remember that the school should also pay 50% of it).

Or perhaps the school has automatic payments set up and they have been paying the bills all year but not deducting it from your pay... Whatever is happening, find out where your money has gone, and if you are liable to pay the bills.

And you could always tell them you are confused about the tax/pension/insurance situation and will call the labor board for some information... its not threatening to the school, but enough to give em a shake up if theyre trying to screw you! (Thats how I found out my school was deducting tax but not paying it... so that got sorted fairly quickly!!)