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prosodic
Joined: 21 Jun 2004
Location: ����
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 Posted: Fri Jan 21, 2005 12:21 am Post subject: MOL decision Re: Sogang Univ |
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I won my arbitration case on Wednesday. It was a slam dunk.
However, my former boss is now saying that they are going to try to appeal. This surprised me because my understanding is that Ministry of Labor arbitration decisions are not appealable.
Does anybody know if Ministry of Labor arbitration decisions can be appealed or is my victory solid?
What I suspect is that my former boss is simply scared and delaying because he's afraid of what is going to happen when his superiors find out about the decision. My former employer is a department of a university with a stellar reputation. Therefore, it is highly likely that my employer's superiors do not know yet (bureaucracy) and it is also highly likely that heads will roll when they find out.
Do you think they're just trying to stall or do you think they're serious about trying to appeal??
**edited Subject heading**
Last edited by prosodic on Sat Mar 05, 2005 5:51 am; edited 2 times in total |
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Wangja
Joined: 17 May 2004
Location: Seoul, Yongsan
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| Posted: Fri Jan 21, 2005 12:28 am Post subject: |
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It depends on the rule of the arbitration hearing and I confess I am not at all au fait with MoL rules.
What I can say, is that arbiration is generally used as a route to dispute resolution from which appeal is specifically not permitted, except in the rare cases where the award hangs on a question of law.
I have never come across a set of arbitration rules that permit appeal. |
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FUBAR
Joined: 21 Oct 2003
Location: The Y.C.
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| Posted: Fri Jan 21, 2005 1:11 am Post subject: Re: Are MOL arbitration decisions appealable? |
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| prosodic wrote: |
I won my arbitration case on Wednesday. It was a slam dunk.
However, my former boss is now saying that they are going to try to appeal. This surprised me because my understanding is that Ministry of Labor arbitration decisions are not appealable.
Does anybody know if Ministry of Labor arbitration decisions can be appealed or is my victory solid?
What I suspect is that my former boss is simply scared and delaying because he's afraid of what is going to happen when his superiors find out about the decision. My former employer is a department of a university with a stellar reputation. Therefore, it is highly likely that my employer's superiors do not know yet (bureaucracy) and it is also highly likely that heads will roll when they find out.
Do you think they're just trying to stall or do you think they're serious about trying to appeal?? |
Generally an arbitartor's ruling cannot be appealed unless it is found that the abritator misapplied a certain law or portion of the labor code. |
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canukteacher
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Location: Seoul, Korea
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| Posted: Sun Jan 23, 2005 3:02 am Post subject: |
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I won a case late last year. It was very strange. No one from the university showed up for the scheduled hearing. The Ministry of Labour ruled in my favour, but did say the university had one more chance to show up. Why? I have no idea. I was told that they could not appeal, the decision would not change, and if they did not pay that MOL would file criminal charges. Go figure? This is Korea. I did get my money, and in the end that's all I cared about.
CT |
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prosodic
Joined: 21 Jun 2004
Location: ����
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| Posted: Sun Jan 23, 2005 5:57 pm Post subject: |
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| canukteacher wrote: |
I won a case late last year. It was very strange. No one from the university showed up for the scheduled hearing. The Ministry of Labour ruled in my favour, but did say the university had one more chance to show up. Why? I have no idea. I was told that they could not appeal, the decision would not change, and if they did not pay that MOL would file criminal charges. Go figure? This is Korea. I did get my money, and in the end that's all I cared about.
CT |
Thanks for the information. The business manager of the university did show up to my arbitration hearing, but had no chance of winning since the university misunderstood Korean law.
It's good to know that the MOL will file criminal charges if they don't pay.
Hey CT, I remember when you were pressing your arbitration case and I was wondering if things had worked out well for you. I'm glad to hear that you won and you got the money. Congratulations. |
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prosodic
Joined: 21 Jun 2004
Location: ����
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| Posted: Mon Jan 24, 2005 3:47 am Post subject: |
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| A quick phone conversation with the Ministry of Labor cleared everything up. There is no appeal process. After hearing that the university is resisting the decision, the MOL imposed a deadline of two weeks from now. After that, the MOL will take it to the next step. |
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ohfamous
Joined: 10 Jul 2004
Location: Off the beaten path
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| Posted: Mon Jan 24, 2005 10:25 am Post subject: |
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prosodic,
didn't know you were having problems with your previous employer. would you care to enlighten/warn the rest of us with what happened?  it might be useful to someone in the future. |
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prosodic
Joined: 21 Jun 2004
Location: ����
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| Posted: Mon Jan 24, 2005 9:40 pm Post subject: |
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| ohfamous wrote: |
prosodic,
didn't know you were having problems with your previous employer. would you care to enlighten/warn the rest of us with what happened? it might be useful to someone in the future. |
Well, it's not that I was really having that big of problems with them, more of that I decided to make a point. For over four months, I kept telling them that certain school policies are illegal. They kept insisting that they do everything legally. I kept insisting that the policies are illegal. Finally, they said that if I really think that, then I should sue. They called my bluff, but weren't prepared for the fact that it wasn't a bluff. Now they're all bent out of shape because they've got the kind of legal problems that I warned them they were vulnerable to.
There are a number of illegal or legally questionable policies here at S. U. At the university language institute, they are currently hiring everybody on an hourly wage contract and claiming that because of that we are all part-time and not entitled to the various benefits associated with full-time employment.
They manage to avoid pension by keeping you at seventeen or fewer hours per week (at least according to the contract). This is actually legal because the pension requirement kicks in when you reach eighteen hours a week.
The policy I chose to make my point with regards paid vacation time. The university institute claims that "part-time" instructors are not entitled to paid-vacation time. The problem with that argument is that Korean law states that paid-vacation time requirements kick in at fifteen hours per week rather than eighteen like the pension requirement.
In the arbitration decision, I won one day of paid holiday for every week in which I worked fifteen hours a week or more. In the four months that I worked for S.U., I worked over fifteen hours a week for seven weeks. Therefore, the Ministry of Labor awarded me seven days of paid vacation time calculated by the average number of hours per day for those seven weeks times my base hourly rate.
The final figure comes to just over a million won. It's not really enough money to make a fuss about, but I was more concerned with principle than the money. Now they know that I was right when I told them that certain school policies are illegal.
Oh, by the way. Before everybody goes out and tries to sue for one day of paid vacation time per week, I should provide a caveat. If you're on an actual salary, it's assumed that a portion of your salary covers the legally required weekly paid holiday. |
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prosodic
Joined: 21 Jun 2004
Location: ����
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| Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2005 11:29 pm Post subject: |
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| Sogang finally paid the money (yesterday). They were just stalling for time, probably hoping that I would get frustrated and stop bugging them about it. |
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buymybook
Joined: 21 Feb 2005
Location: Telluride
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| Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2005 12:11 am Post subject: Arbitration |
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O.K. fellas, I have some Department of Labor Ministry experience but I didn't ever hear anything about an Arbitrator. Is that simply the man(in most cases) who sits there and listens to your statement and then the other side? I worked at hakwons, but why would that be any different than a university? Did you need a translator when you went to the DLM? How many times did you go? I had to have a speaking translator as well as the contract translated into Hangul?
Some people might say I won, others may not. They awarded me additional money for my last months work and agreed I was fired illegally. Didn't matter though, they couldn't help me for two reasons. First, the D.L.M. is weak and could not force the Wonjang to pay. The wonjang prefers to pay the fine for not paying me and/or ignoring the law. Second, the hakwon I worked at did not employ at an average of more than 5 workers in the 11 months that I worked there.
A piece of advice...Watch your back! Think about this...Could you possibly believe you won't experience any repercussions from filing that claim while you still work there, especially after "heads will roll?" On the other hand, good job!!! Did anyone else such as your co-workers thank you? How have they treated you, any negative feedback before or after from your co-workers? |
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prosodic
Joined: 21 Jun 2004
Location: ����
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| Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2005 12:39 am Post subject: Re: Arbitration |
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| buymybook wrote: |
O.K. fellas, I have some Department of Labor Ministry experience but I didn't ever hear anything about an Arbitrator. Is that simply the man(in most cases) who sits there and listens to your statement and then the other side? I worked at hakwons, but why would that be any different than a university? Did you need a translator when you went to the DLM? How many times did you go? I had to have a speaking translator as well as the contract translated into Hangul?
Some people might say I won, others may not. They awarded me additional money for my last months work and agreed I was fired illegally. Didn't matter though, they couldn't help me for two reasons. First, the D.L.M. is weak and could not force the Wonjang to pay. The wonjang prefers to pay the fine for not paying me and/or ignoring the law. Second, the hakwon I worked at did not employ at an average of more than 5 workers in the 11 months that I worked there.
A piece of advice...Watch your back! Think about this...Could you possibly believe you won't experience any repercussions from filing that claim while you still work there, especially after "heads will roll?" On the other hand, good job!!! Did anyone else such as your co-workers thank you? How have they treated you, any negative feedback before or after from your co-workers? |
Thanks for the advice, but if you reread it you'll notice that I resigned before filing the case. I don't think I'll have to watch my back.
Technically, the title is not "arbitrator," but rather "labor inspector." While the Ministry of Labor does not have enforcement power, MOL decisions can be enforced in a civil or criminal court. Most MOL decisions are for amounts that can be brought to small claims court. Simply bring the MOL decision to small claims court and it's an open and shut case. When you win in small claims court, the defendant's bank accounts are frozen and a lien is placed on them until you are fully compensated. Also, small claims court will force the school to compensate you for all court expenses (which are small anyways) after you win the decision. Usually, informing the school of the consequences of going to small claims court will convince them to pay up. If they need further incentive, mention the names of a few newspapers that you are in contact with (even if you aren't).
My coworkers, especially the few who have not also resigned, have been very thankful for my efforts. After all, Sogang had to revise their policies because they don't want to have more such cases. |
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hellofaniceguy
Joined: 10 Jan 2003
Location: On your computer screen!
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| Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2005 5:07 am Post subject: |
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Isn't it a shame that one has to sue for their money. I mean...most teachers have signed contracts...hakwons and universities KNOW the law with regards to paying, etc. The same people signing the contracts...schools, etc. have been signing contracts many times and know what has to be done.
My thought on this is that I think most koreans would not rock the boat and just accept the rearend shafting that many get. They...koreans...have to live in korea and need their jobs....where foreigners tell the boss to stick it and leave korea. |
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prosodic
Joined: 21 Jun 2004
Location: ����
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| Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2005 5:48 am Post subject: |
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| hellofaniceguy wrote: |
| My thought on this is that I think most koreans would not rock the boat and just accept the rearend shafting that many get. They...koreans...have to live in korea and need their jobs....where foreigners tell the boss to stick it and leave korea. |
If only you were right about it being only Koreans who won't rock the boat. Of the four other instructors who have resigned since I did, only one asked for the vacation money owed. The other three say that they're going to wait awhile to see if they can get seasonal work from Sogang down the road. Still, they appreciate the precedent that I set and they took note of the statute of limitations on this thing so that they can ask for the money later.
I wish that everybody had the same attitude that hellofaniceguy described. Then maybe Korean bosses would stop trying to shaft us.
By the way, I assume that most of you know that Sogang shut down the institute last year March and reopened in September with an entirely new staff of 8 teachers. If you do the math on the above paragraph, you'll note that five of us resigned between the end of December and the end of February. Three of the five were replacements for people who had resigned even earlier. Aren't those great turnover stats? |
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hogwonguy1979
Joined: 22 Dec 2003
Location: the racoon den
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| Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2005 6:09 am Post subject: |
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pros, were you one of the teachers sogang fired last spring when they shut down the hogwon and decided to rehire people for 1/4th the pay or were you one of the newbies who were given IMHO a lousy contract with low pay et al.
I was offered a position last summer for their teacher training program but turned it down when I heard what happened. The person in charge Ms Jung (a seeminingly nice young woman) was the person I dealt with. Was she the one you dealt with?
just wondering |
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prosodic
Joined: 21 Jun 2004
Location: ����
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| Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2005 6:26 am Post subject: |
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| hogwonguy1979 wrote: |
pros, were you one of the teachers sogang fired last spring when they shut down the hogwon and decided to rehire people for 1/4th the pay or were you one of the newbies who were given IMHO a lousy contract with low pay et al.
I was offered a position last summer for their teacher training program but turned it down when I heard what happened. The person in charge Ms Jung (a seeminingly nice young woman) was the person I dealt with. Was she the one you dealt with?
just wondering |
Hi Hogwonguy,
I started in September of 2004. Here's the story. I had lined up a job last summer at a college in Cheonan. Then, at the end of August, the director of that program sent me an email telling me how to get from ICN airport to Cheonan (I was in NY at the time). His idea was that I should wait in the airport all night and take the first express bus of the morning. Well, I figured that if that was his idea of how to treat people well, then I didn't want to deal with him for a full year, so I backed out of the agreement. Still, by that time, I had a nonrefundable plane ticket and had sold all my furniture, so I just hopped on the plane and started jobhunting. I contacted Sogang the morning after my plane landed and had the job offer by that afternoon. Not exactly a good sign, but I figured I would need the job only until the next uni hiring season. I was right and now I'm at another top ten uni in Seoul with pretty much a standard uni contract.
Clara Jung is a nice woman, but unfortunately she doesn't have any authority to shape the contract or compensation package. I honestly believe that she would have put together a better contract if she could. It's her boss, a Dr. Lim, who makes those decisions, and he has a very old-school Korean management style. As an example, one of the instructors had found an apartment and was asking for the 20 million won key money that was in his contract. Dr. Lim didn't like the location of the apartment, said it was too far away (about an hour and a half, which is far but less of a commute than some Koreans have). Basically, Dr. Lim refused to authorize the key money and said, and I quote, "housing is a privilege, not a right." |
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