Korean Job Discussion Forums

[duke of new york]

Here we go...

I've been working at a hagwon on a 12-month contract for about 7 months. My boss has always been honest with me and treated me fairly. He gave me my 30-day notice last week, saying he is closing the school and opening a test-prep type place with just Korean teachers. He's arranging to get me all my pay and my housing deposit before I go, and I have no reason to believe he won't take care of that stuff. He even offered to help me find another job, but I want to be back in the US in August, and I don't really want to start a new contract.

What he won't do is provide my return airfare. He says that, like severance, this is a benefit only available if the entire 12-month contract is completed. It seems to me that I fulfilled my end of the contract, and since he is the one breaking it, it is his responsibility to provide the airfare promised upon completion of the contract. I argued with him a little, but he wouldn't budge. I told him I wanted to find out the official legal answer before I agreed to anything.

Here is the exact wording of the contract:

[Wildbore]

You neither finished the contract nor completed the employment, so you don't get a ticket or a refund, according the the contract. He ended your employment according to the contract and the labor laws, so he is NOT in breach and doesn't owe you anything. There are no laws, only contract law, which is made up of the civil code sections, relevent case law, and however a judge/lawyer would interpret the contract, and I doubt very much you would get much help from that.

Bottom line is your boss is an idiot and is throwing lots of money away by buying a one way ticket each trip. He should have bought an open-ended/refundable round trip ticket, and either offered you the return trip for the amount he would get refunded if he cancelled the return leg of the ticket. Clearly a VERY RETARDED manager.

[duke of new york]

Unfortunate for me, I guess. It just seems incredibly unfair that I am responsible for the expenses resulting from my employer's decision to terminate the contract.

The contract doesn't mention anything about being able to terminate the employee because the school goes out of business. I believe the only grounds for termination in the contract are the employee not fulfilling his duties and endangering students and stuff like that. Does that matter, or can he legally end the contract with no consequences because he's going out of business, regardless of what the contract says about grounds for termination?

[Troglodyte]

I suspect that the employer didn't do this because he's stupid. He likely did it because he knew in advance that he might want to fire the teacher early (or didn't trust that the teacher would hang around for the whole contract). So in the end he saved himself a few Won. Sure, it would have been good for the teacher if he'd got a round-trip ticket and split the price with the teacher or had the teacher pay the amount that the cancellation would have been for, but really he couldn't have forced the teacher to pay back half the price or anything. The ticket would have been in the teacher's name. Once he's given it to the employee, he'd have to go to court to legally deduct the cost from the employee's paycheck.

To the OP, if you're already in Korea and can do a visa transfer, then you don't need to sign a 1 year contract. You could do a 6 month contract and request that your next boss provide you a 1 way ticket back home after the six months. Contracts don't have to be 1 year. They can be any length of time. If you're already here, can start work tomorrow and don't need to do any paperwork (other than submitting an application to transfer your visa), lots of school will be willing to negotiate with you.

[YTMND]

[Troglodyte]

[duke of new york]

I didn't mean to give the impression that it's a bad hagwon or the boss is a bad guy. I just honestly thought he was legally required to honor the final compensation in the contract if he ended it early. That's why I asked.

So, what kinds of jobs would I be able to get for 3-4 months? Would it be possible to get one of those jobs teaching business English to adults? I don't think I can bring myself to start another job teaching kids, but if I could teach adults for decent pay, I might stay in Korea for a few more months. A year or 6-month contract is not an option, because I am enrolling in a university in the US in August.

[bbunce]

[PatrickGHBusan]

The "one-way" ticket has some logic behind it from an employer standpoint.

It means the return one-way ticket is only provided to a teacher who completes his contract. In a way it also protects the employer who does not have an employee with a fully paid 2-way ticket in hand.

As for the OP, according to your contract clause and what you said, your employer does not owe you airfare back home.

Good luck!

[ontheway]

A round-trip ticket is generally a mistake and that's why it's almost universally avoided for 1 year contract teachers.

A round-trip ticket can expire before a teacher has a chance to finish his contract, meaning the teacher will either have to lose the ticket, pay a fee to change the ticket or lose out on the severance and the cost of the return flight itself by using the ticket.

A round-trip ticket can lock-in a teacher to a timeframe that precludes staying in Korea for trave,l or another contract, or travel to another destination.

One-way tickets are the smart way to go for everyone, and the teacher generally gains options and loses nothing since the employer is paying for each ticket.


For the OP, the losses of his completion bonuses (airfare and severance) are one of the unfortunate results of business failure in the real world. Many workers will face this type of problem at some point during their working career: business failure, cutbacks, layoffs etc are a painfull but necessary part of an economy restructuring itself to the demands of the marketplace.

At this point, the OP can secure a new job with the chance to earn another one-way ticket for 6 months of work or stay for 12 months and earn severance under the new contract, possibly a higher salary based on experience and the value of 2 tickets when only one is needed. However, the OP's own life limitations - returning home in August or sooner - may preclude his chance to salvage this situation without any financial loss. Perhaps there are money earning opportunities at home for the OP to allow him to recoup some or all of his losses.

We all make our own choices to best suit our situations. In this case, returning in August, or sooner, comes with a potential financial downside. Whether it is worth the loss, and what the best choice for the future may be, is for the OP to figure out.

[duke of new york]

[bbunce]

[duke of new york]

[Troglodyte]