Korean Job Discussion Forums

maddog · Joined: 08 Dec 2005 Location: Daegu

My contract states that I have to work 20 hours per week, or 90 hours per month.

Summer intensive ran from 21 July til 22 August with three days compulsory vacation in the middle.

I was working 27 hours per week.

My employer is using multiple iterations of the definition of a month (20 days or 31 days) and my working hours (20/week or 90/month) to pay me the lowest ammount of OT he thinks he can get away with.

HIS CALCULATION
Summer intensive was 5 weeks = 1.25 months (WRONG. 5 weeks = 1.15 months)
Therefore, my OT threshold for that period is 90x1.25=112.5

MY CALCULATION
5 weeks is 5 weeks, not 1.25 months. There were three days compulsory vacation. 4 hours per day comes to 12 hours for 3 days.
20x5=100. 100-12=88

During that 5-week period I worked a total of 116.5 hours. 116.5-88=29.5

My boss is claiming that I am owed just 12 hours OT. (He lost an additional two hours somewhere in his black magic math.)

Under Korean law, does his math hold up. One minute he's working in months of 28 days, then 31 days, then 5 weeks, then 1.25 months. He is fisting me, isn't he.

Anyway you cut it, I was doing 7 hours a week OT for 4.4 weeks.

I was looking forward to my OT.

The funny thing is, he wants me to re-sign. In fact, he assumes I will re-sign. Not after this.

Cheers for an advice.

MD

Thunndarr · Joined: 30 Sep 2003

Your summer intensive camp is split up over the course of two different months. The overtime you worked during July would have been added to your hours for July only, same with August.

And unfortunately for you, I can tell you that it's quite common to view vacation days as zero hours for the purposes of calculating your time. (This occasionally works in your favor, but very often, as in your case, does not.)

moosehead · Joined: 05 May 2007

guess getting fisted is what you can call it - tho down South where I come from we call it getting screwed and not getting kissed -

sorry OP after all, TIK Shocked

maddog · Joined: 08 Dec 2005 Location: Daegu

Thunndarr · Joined: 30 Sep 2003

Tobias · Joined: 02 Jun 2008

Supply and demand forces are on your side. If the guy wants to re-sign you, bring it up in negotiations even if you aren't planning on going another year. If he thinks you're returning, he may pay you for it before the end comes. If you remind him of how tough it may be to replace you, he may pay you on the spot. Give it a shot.

Good luck.

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

I don't see how this hours per month thing can work in any scenario. That should be wiped clean from contracts. Get it in as so many hours per week with so many hours per day.

With the "or" clause in your contract, he could work it out in his favor. So if it is more in his favor to do it the weekly way, he'll do that or vice versa.

But there's no other way for him to work it out. He has to go by the 90 hrs/month or 20 hrs/wk.

I see where you're coming from with the vacation day being included in your total hours so as to get more OT, but I'd forget about that one.

The ticket, or should I say "solution," to avoid this type of situation is to have OT agreed upon as being daily. If you sign a contract for 20 hrs/wk, you should at least both agree that anything over 4 hours/day (teaching hours) should be OT. Or have a set schedule where anything outside your daily schedule is OT with a maximum of 20 hrs during the course of a week within said schedule.

That's it, that's all.

Zyzyfer · Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 5:32 pm Post subject:

matthews_world · Joined: 15 Feb 2003

Maybe he's not paying you for the full hour.

If your school goes by the 22 hour per week max then based on your figure that should be 7.5 extra OT.

How many specific days did you actually work? Start and finish. When did your pay period begin?

There are so many variables here that we need to know.

If there aren't complete weeks that you worked, the OT that you perceived to be working can be absorbed into the 22 hour max.

maddog · Joined: 08 Dec 2005 Location: Daegu

It seems like I haven't got a leg to stand on. In any civilized country paid vacation counts as hours worked.

I've got co-workers who are on 30 hours per week (ie, an average of six hours per day). One of them did 18 hours OT. He's gonna be equally pissed when he finds out that his 3 days paid vacation effectively nullifies any OT that he did.

Oh, I even called the labor board, but even they couldn't give me a straight answer. They said it's between me and my employer. Very vague.

MD