Korean Job Discussion Forums

[big_fella1]

With all the stories of Hagwons going broke and the few stories of Hagwons deliberately scamming employees it's time that native teachers were paid weekly. In the interests of equality, I think actually all teachers should be paid weekly.

This helps the Hagwon as it's easier on their cashflow to pay weekly, and it's makes runners a lot less likely, as teachers can't run on a weeks pay. It will even keep those bad with money working hard as they will need next weeks pay after they spent last weeks on the weekend.

It's helps teachers because they get paid every week, and they can start looking for new jobs should their employer get more than a week behind.

There would be problems as hagwons may get all their cash in at one time of the month, they would need to manage that money over the month. Also pension and health insurance are calculated on monthly salaries, however most of the hagwons this is addressed at would be pulling the 3.3% scam thus not paying tax, insurance or pension.

Any opinions?

[Stan Rogers]

It'll never happen.

[Gorf]

A good idea, but it won't ever happen, considering Koreans are staunch at procrastination and screwing over their employees. That would put more risk into being a hagwon owner, because then they can't split and run with your money once they screw up their schools. If you were to ever get that deal, you'd have to be a seasoned vet with wiggle room to negotiate. Most NETs are over here for a year or less, so their nuts are always in the employer's vice. Reducing risk for teachers would also mean a lower salary as well.

There's also some kind of weird mentality where people think that teaching little kids English in Korea is a "real job". Who knows where that comes from? Anyways, because it's believed to be a "real job", they expect you to be paid the way Samsung or LG pays their employees, once a month.

[Juregen]

Talk to the governement first.

The system in Korea is not set up for things to be paid weekly.

[lemak]

[YTMND]

[lemak]

[PatrickGHBusan]

Korea workers are paid monthly, not just foreign teachers.

That will not change unless Koreans demand it.

[some waygug-in]

The best way I've seen or heard of is when teachers demand to be paid in advance.

I've seen this work, but the school has to be desperate enough to agree.

If they have any chance of just replacing the teacher, they will go that route instead.


It's up to individual teachers to negotiate things with their respective schools,

it will never be a law or anything of the sort.

[CPJ]

Most of what you posted makes no sense to a hagwon. If I had a hagwon, I would never go for it.

If someone is going to pull a runner, they are going to pull a runner. However, this makes it way more likely for teachers to run as the hagwons would have less of their money. A normal runner loses 10+ days of pay. If teachers were paid weekly, the most they would lose is 5 days of pay.

Also, they would have to do payroll 4+ times a month instead of 1. It would be like asking a teacher to write report cards every month. Would you do report cards every month or every 2 or 3 months?

And if a school is so desperate for a teacher that they will agree to pay you weekly, it is a school you should not work for. With the excess of teachers, there must be something seriously wrong there.

[Skippy]

I think asking for a weekly pay would then change the nature of the worker. Change for a contracted/full time worker to part time worker or fixed term worker.

With that change will likely come some advantages and disadvantages. For example, the school then could then use some legal trickery to to opt out of benefits like severance or pension.

Still anything is up for negotiation. It can be done. Just each worker is going to be different. For F4/F5s this would be nice. Yet for the E-2 who have restrictions on movement. This has problems.

Actually you know what would be better then paying weekly. It has already happened to a degree. The labor board! 10 years ago most of the time these situations would end up with the teach being able to do nothing. Now many teachers are learning and fighting back with the board. Just wish the boards had some English services.

[YTMND]

[lemak]

[YTMND]

[Dog Soldier]

For those who use systems to pay salaries (not cash) it also costs the company more to run weekly payroll, so yeah, it'll never happen.