Korean Job Discussion Forums

[yakey]

A good friend of mine had to leave his university job to go home because of a death in the family. He didn't know how long he'd be there, so he resigned and left only after finishing the semester and getting shining results on his student surveys of the teacher, which seem to carry a lot of weight. He never missed a class, never was late, did all his administrative work. So he did everything that all the other professors did to earn their summer pay, but the university decided to railroad him and cut him off even after the university's personnel said they'd at least pay him for another month (through the end of July). Now the university person who promised him his pay quit her job and it seems to me that he's getting screwed by the university's middle management in an effort to stab him in the back or as a cost cutting measure or both. At the college where I taught, a similar situation happened and they paid the guy all the way through the summer even though he left two weeks before the end of the semester on family business. What's your take on this? I say the university official promised him an extra month, and the guy worked faithfully from March to the end of June and deserved at least some kind of vacation pay.

[SuperHero]

I would say that he should get paid for however long he is required to give notice of resigning in his contract. That would probably be either 30 or 60 days. If your friend comes back to Korea then he should pursue this with the labor board, if not then there probably isn't much he can do.

[justagirl]

When did he leave? If he left right after the semester in June, I don't see why he should be paid for July.

[yakey]

I think you're wrong. If somebody works for, as an example, public schools back home they would automatically have their vacation days figured for that amount of time they worked and get a settlement payment equal to a percentage of the total year's vacation days. And people have to show a little heart for someone who just lost a close relative, in my opinion, not just cut them off bone dry. He did the same work as everyone who is getting paid through the summer, so why isn't he entitled to something?

[yakey]

They told him they'd pay him through the end of July. If the business office at the place where you resign commits to paying you for another month, they should do it. That's the difference between a good employer and one that belongs on the black list.

[oldfatfarang]

Please post the name of the University.

[Pak Yu Man]

Cold hearted bastards. It's not like July would have been his vacation time and they would have had to pay him to sit on his ass or what-not.

[steroidmaximus]

seeing as your monthly salary at a university is supposed to reflect the 2-5 months of vacation time, this is pretty shady.

As you said, a university / public school figures how many actual working hours you'll put in, assesses a lump yearly amount, then pays that amount equally over 12 months. If your friend got jipped out of 2 months vacation salary, he was working for less than everybody else.

I know of a top university that does this kind of thing regularily. How much you wanna bet it's the same one your friend is having problems with? They also charged teachers overtime rate to have classes covered by others when they were in hospital, despite how not all days off included in the contract were used and said classes were cancelled!

Someone's doing a little fiddling with the books is my guess.

[yakey]

Kyung Hee University - Seoul Campus.

And there are other problems there, I hear, so be careful if you're headed in that direction.

[yakey]

The latest of the Kyung Hee problems includes sexual harrassment in the workplace.

Evidently there was a foreign teacher going around demanding to know if some of his co-workers were gay or not.

He got right up into my friend's grill one morning and demanded to know if he was gay or not.

If that's not harrassment, I don't know what is.