Korean Job Discussion Forums

[bassexpander]

http://www.themidnightrunner.com

[ChopChaeJoe]

What good is a teacher with swine flu?

[D.D.]

[D.D.]

You can invite him to a a party with many other foreign teachers and apply for their jobs after they get fired.

[CentralCali]

What good is a teacher with a cold? Both conditions are contagious and both conditions are temporary.

I listened to the podcast. "Mark" got some bad information. He mentioned that he was told if he got another job in Korea, he could no longer pursue his former employer for 30 days pay. That's incorrect.

[bassexpander]

[lifeinkorea]

It also sounds like he is counting 2 weeks before he got swine flu as 3 months pay. He didn't get paid for 3 months? If so, shouldn't that be 3.5 months?

[CentralCali]

The only change in laws that apply to anything in that particular podcast was that not so long ago a Korean court ruled that the truth is a defense against a charge of libel/slander. If what's said/published is (a) true and (b) for the betterment of society, then there's no libel/slander.

I know that one can still pursue a case against a former employer after getting another job within one month. I did it. The pension office, the health office, the tax office, and the labor board all had their parts in that particular dance.

By the way, I posted the "Swine Flu Management Manual" I, along with every other BMOE employee, received electronically this Monday.

[CentralCali]

[lifeinkorea]

Those 3 months shouldn't count then. I mean, what if the school stopped paying at 6 months, meaning he didn't hypothetically get paid months 7,8, and 9? Would that have been more than 3 months worth of pay?

Of course not. I don't see how you can count 3 months into the future as lost income. He has chosen to either work in Korea or go home. Either he will be making those three months here, or he will go home.

If it matters so much to you that you finish the year, then I suggest you not travel to Thailand like "Mark" did.

If he gets another job in Korea, he should try to go for that one month notice thing.

[ontheway]

Teachers in Korea should all face the reality of this swine flu situation: People around the world, and especially Koreans, have developed a raging, media-fed, case of paranoia about this year's flu, even though the CDC has repeatedly said that, at this time, they do not expect that it will be worse than any other year.


As a result, Koreans are closing public and private schools when just one student or teacher has a case of swine flu. Parents are afraid to send their children to any school if they hear that any child from any one of the closed schools also attends the unaffected school. Even when those children are disease free.

Of course, they will withdraw their children in greater panic if they hear that a teacher is or was infected. Even after you are well and disease free, you will cause too many parents to pull their children out of school - public or private - to be allowed to continue teaching. We are the dirty, disease ridden, typhoid Marys and we will face the burden of being the scapegoats.

Korea has worked its citizens up into a state of mass hysteria about the swine flu and nationwide panic could set in at any time. Since normally, hundreds or thousands of Koreans would die from the flu in any given year, and since this year we can expect the same, and since each of those deaths will be reverberate throughout Korea as the media flogs the gongs of hysteria, teachers who catch the swine flu, or any type of flu this year should expect that they will lose their jobs. Their schools may close as a result - some for temporary periods, some permanently.



It is unfortunate what happened to the teacher on the podcast. We can expect this event to be replayed again and again over the next 9 months. He should get his 30 days pay for being terminated. He should not get his flight or severance. Sorry.

[CentralCali]