Korean Job Discussion Forums

[bbud656]

If the labor board doesnt have teeth, whats the incentive for employers to actually follow the law? Is there any negatives for an employer losing a case besides the obvious monetary loss down the road in civil court? It seems like more people would be getting screwed if it was this difficult to get what you are owed.

[CentralCali]

People are getting screwed all the time, left and right, both foreigners and Koreans. Plenty of people do a cost vs risk assessment before deciding to file or not. The labor board is simply stop number one on your path to getting what you're owed if you're owed anything. A decent employer would quit fighting after the labor board finding, but think about it...if the employer were decent, then there wouldn't be a problem in the first place.

If you do have a case--and in your current situation there is no case as of now because your employer hasn't failed to honor any obligations--then you should go to the labor board. That's why I'm saying what your proposed course of action will accomplish is certainly to upset your employer, possibly get yourself fired, and likely to end up in court after a long haul through the labor board. The labor board will likely tell you now that you have no cause of action and won't accept your complaint yet.

You have basically told your employer that you don't trust them. Do yourself a favor and wait until a few weeks before the end of your employment and definitely no earlier than during the last month of your employment to discuss with your employer how much you're going to get paid and when. If and only if your boss then doesn't pay, inform him you're going to the labor board.

This highlights the reason I usually advise my friends to not leave Korea immediately after the end of their contract unless there is a provision that you only get the return airfare upon leaving Korea permanently. You are at a disadvantage and there's no real consequence for the employer's misbehavior at the end of your contract if you're leaving immediately.

[bbud656]

That was the plan I decided on after your first couple posts. I'll wait until they ask me to re sign (last month) and I decline to have the talk about what happens next with money, etc. No one has ever left my job before, so I don't think they really know what to do. Now that I know how the labor board works, I know how to better handle the situation. The school is in the process of getting their ducks in a row for a university upgrade, so hopefully they will want to follow the law as best they can if they find out they made a mistake with our contracts.

[CentralCali]

Generally the boss will ask for you to commit before you reach the last month of your contract. Take a wild guess why that is. Now, if you want to play it smart, IMHO, you'll tell the boss that you're sure you will continue and then when you do reach the last month of the contract, then you tell the boss that you're sorry but you can't stay. To me that's self-preservation.