Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Stan Rogers]

A friend of mine who works at a mainland uni has been told that next semester his work hours will be increased, his pay frozen and housing assistance cut off. He is not very happy about this kind of treatment and is thinking about quitting mid-semester. He asked me about the ramifications of this. He has an F visa.

Any thoughts?

[tanklor1]

His contract should spell out exactly what happens.

[creeper1]

mainland? The university isn't on dokdo?

[Guajiro]

[World Traveler]

Stan Rogers lives on Jeju Island. He's talking about mainland South Korea.

[Guajiro]

[The Cosmic Hum]

[Stan Rogers]

I spoke to my friend and he tells me that there are two contract signing periods. Some teachers sign in the spring and some in the fall. He is under the old contract. The new contracts that the spring teachers signed has all the changes. His contract changes will come in the fall if an when he signs.

Anyway my friend's school gave out the schedules to the teachers last winter and they assumed they were under the same old contract hours with some overtime. The school simply asked them if they wanted to sign a new contract and all of them said yes. The school waited until after the semester started and then asked them to sign the new contract. The spring semester contracts all had their hours increased, housing stipends cut off and no raise. The extra hours were not overtime. Needless to say the teachers are pissed. Some of them are talking about quitting mid semester. My friend was saying the same thing. The whole situation sounds pretty chaotic.

I am still trying to understand why his school deviously neglected to tell the teachers about the changes and waited until the semester started before showing them the contract. I didn't know what to say to my friend because I've never heard of this happening at a uni before.

[ttompatz]

[drcrazy]

[Stan Rogers]

That's what I was thinking. It's not very respectful toward his students and co-workers. That said many of the teachers feel lied to and I understand their anger. You must remember that these people don't have the right to strike and their objections have fallen upon deaf ears. Could it be that a worker at the school just simply forgot to mention it? My friend sees it as "If the school wants to make things difficult for us why can't we return the courtesy?" Labor relations there are obviously breaking down.

If someone does jump ship there I don't think anyone is going to want to teach the runner's or runners' classes. It must be a very tense environment right now.

[Malislamusrex]

I would just walk up to him and.... uppercut. He doesn't deserve words.

[PRagic]

Seems pretty straight forward: finish the current contract then don't sign up again under the deteriorated conditions. The more teachers that don't resign, the stronger the message. It's sill an employer's market, though, so all signs point to them shrugging it off and recruiting newbs. The more newbs they have to recruit, though, the bigger the pain in the butt it will be for them regardless.

I imagine jlb is going to get some well deserved flack here. She's not above coming on Dave's for a shameless plug, and virtually all the info in her book can be gleaned from this site to begin with, but then she flames away? Don't know where that came from.