Korean Job Discussion Forums

[maddog]

Last night I had a few words with my boss regarding OT swindling, low morale, and a total lack of communication between management and FTs.

For summer intensive, everyone, even those who didn't have extra classes, was promised 200K compensation for the inconvenience of working 10 hour days. A few teachers asked if the money would be included in Aug paycheck. My manager denied that any such promise had ever been made.

I pointed out that everyone was pissed at having put in an additional 44 office hours over the course of a month for nothing.

He then pointed out that there is nothing in our contracts regarding office hours, just classroom hours.

In the very next sentence, he stated that FTs were guilty of taking advantage of the contract!!!

To counter his argument, I stated that I should be allowed to go home immediately after my last class, assuming prep, grading, etc have been done.

He said I couldn't do that because of company policy. Company policy seems to be that we do whatever we are told without question, regardless of what our contracts say.

Then he started going on about confucianism (?), and pointed that that in Korea, a contract is just a rough guide.

It seems that the managment at my school are determined for the business to fail. There are five teachers whose contracts end within three weeks of eachother. Three of those had always stated that they were leaving after a year. But two of us were considering another year. In light of recent events, I have decided I can't possibly spend another year here. My co-worker (Captain Marlow) has said that he will only stay if he gets four weeks off between contracts. Well, now that I am leaving, it is VERY unlikely he will get it. So, this school is going to lose five FTs (out of 11) in the space of three weeks just before the end the fall semester.

Bravo. How to bankrupt a business in 21 days.

Now all I have to worry about is severance, final paycheck, housing deposit, and flight - a pesky 6-7 thousand dollars.

MD

[Lekker]

I dare you to punch your boss in the face. Then say "I ain't Korean Biyatch. Confucianism don't apply to me."

[ED209]

[poet13]

44 hours for 200,000? Wow. Management should have been overjoyed with getting away with such a cheap price.

[Skippy]

Please when you do leave. Tell us the NAME OF THE SCHOOL. So other people will not get sucked into the same crap.

[jkelly80]

Here's what I would say (and probably will have to myself, soon):

If it's cultural, it should be in the contract. If it's economic/religious/thermodynamic/ectoplasmic, put in the contract, and I will base my decision to work for your company based on these explicit cultural/economic/religious/thermodynamic/ectoplasmic factors. Otherwise, to quote Ray Liotta, "F*** you, pay me."

[svetsky]

jkelly80 wrote:

Here's what I would say (and probably will have to myself, soon): If it's cultural, it should be in the contract. If it's economic/religious/thermodynamic/ectoplasmic, put in the contract, and I will base my decision to work for your company based on these explicit cultural/economic/religious/thermodynamic/ectoplasmic factors. Otherwise, to quote Ray Liotta, "F*** you, pay me."

I totally agree..seems too often "culture" is used as an excuse.
A contract, is a set of terms to make both parties comfortable.


Any thing not stipulated in the existing contract should have a clause that requires re-negotioation should terms exceed the requirements of the existing written agreement that could not have been foreseen beforehand.

"Culture issues" are fore-seeable.

In my opinion, if an employer hires a foreigner as an employee, there must be a written contract regardless of whether it's common practice in the host country. A written contract must be honored for the very fact that two cultures are involved in order to avoid any cultural misunderstandings.

An "international" contract for example (don't know if this exists) would take cultural criteria into account as opposed to the foreign employee having to blindly resign to unknown terms. It's ridiculous.

[Underwaterbob]

My old hagwon's contract said: "employee works no more than XXX hours per month" in one paragraph and "employee may be required to work additional hours" in the next. Just about sums it up.