Korean Job Discussion Forums

maddog · Joined: 08 Dec 2005 Location: Daegu

My contract states that I have to work 20 hours per week, or 90 hours per month.

Summer intensive ran from 21 July til 22 August with three days compulsory vacation in the middle.

I was working 27 hours per week.

My employer is using multiple iterations of the definition of a month (20 days or 31 days) and my working hours (20/week or 90/month) to pay me the lowest ammount of OT he thinks he can get away with.

HIS CALCULATION
Summer intensive was 5 weeks = 1.25 months (WRONG. 5 weeks = 1.15 months)
Therefore, my OT threshold for that period is 90x1.25=112.5

MY CALCULATION
5 weeks is 5 weeks, not 1.25 months. There were three days compulsory vacation. 4 hours per day comes to 12 hours for 3 days.
20x5=100. 100-12=88

During that 5-week period I worked a total of 116.5 hours. 116.5-88=29.5

My boss is claiming that I am owed just 12 hours OT. (He lost an additional two hours somewhere in his black magic math.)

Under Korean law, does his math hold up. One minute he's working in months of 28 days, then 31 days, then 5 weeks, then 1.25 months. He is fisting me, isn't he.

Anyway you cut it, I was doing 7 hours a week OT for 4.4 weeks.

I was looking forward to my OT.

The funny thing is, he wants me to re-sign. In fact, he assumes I will re-sign. Not after this.

Cheers for an advice.

MD

Thunndarr · Joined: 30 Sep 2003

Your summer intensive camp is split up over the course of two different months. The overtime you worked during July would have been added to your hours for July only, same with August.

And unfortunately for you, I can tell you that it's quite common to view vacation days as zero hours for the purposes of calculating your time. (This occasionally works in your favor, but very often, as in your case, does not.)

moosehead · Joined: 05 May 2007

guess getting fisted is what you can call it - tho down South where I come from we call it getting screwed and not getting kissed -

sorry OP after all, TIK Shocked

maddog · Joined: 08 Dec 2005 Location: Daegu

Thunndarr · Joined: 30 Sep 2003

Tobias · Joined: 02 Jun 2008

Supply and demand forces are on your side. If the guy wants to re-sign you, bring it up in negotiations even if you aren't planning on going another year. If he thinks you're returning, he may pay you for it before the end comes. If you remind him of how tough it may be to replace you, he may pay you on the spot. Give it a shot.

Good luck.

yingwenlaoshi · Joined: 12 Feb 2007 Location: ... location, location!

I don't see how this hours per month thing can work in any scenario. That should be wiped clean from contracts. Get it in as so many hours per week with so many hours per day.

With the "or" clause in your contract, he could work it out in his favor. So if it is more in his favor to do it the weekly way, he'll do that or vice versa.

But there's no other way for him to work it out. He has to go by the 90 hrs/month or 20 hrs/wk.

I see where you're coming from with the vacation day being included in your total hours so as to get more OT, but I'd forget about that one.

The ticket, or should I say "solution," to avoid this type of situation is to have OT agreed upon as being daily. If you sign a contract for 20 hrs/wk, you should at least both agree that anything over 4 hours/day (teaching hours) should be OT. Or have a set schedule where anything outside your daily schedule is OT with a maximum of 20 hrs during the course of a week within said schedule.

That's it, that's all.

Zyzyfer · Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 5:32 pm Post subject:

matthews_world · Joined: 15 Feb 2003

Maybe he's not paying you for the full hour.

If your school goes by the 22 hour per week max then based on your figure that should be 7.5 extra OT.

How many specific days did you actually work? Start and finish. When did your pay period begin?

There are so many variables here that we need to know.

If there aren't complete weeks that you worked, the OT that you perceived to be working can be absorbed into the 22 hour max.

maddog · Joined: 08 Dec 2005 Location: Daegu

It seems like I haven't got a leg to stand on. In any civilized country paid vacation counts as hours worked.

I've got co-workers who are on 30 hours per week (ie, an average of six hours per day). One of them did 18 hours OT. He's gonna be equally pissed when he finds out that his 3 days paid vacation effectively nullifies any OT that he did.

Oh, I even called the labor board, but even they couldn't give me a straight answer. They said it's between me and my employer. Very vague.

MD

yingwenlaoshi · Joined: 12 Feb 2007 Location: ... location, location!

maddog · Joined: 08 Dec 2005 Location: Daegu

I'm gonna call the labor board again later. Maybe I'll get a clear answer as to whether or not paid vacation counts towards hours worked. I'll keep y'all posted.

Thunndarr · Joined: 30 Sep 2003

maddog · Joined: 08 Dec 2005 Location: Daegu

I called the labor board again.

The guy I spoke to said that paid vacation DOES count as hours worked. He said specifically that if my contract state 20 hours per week, each day of paid vacation counts as 4 hours worked.

He also said that ANYTHING over 40 hours, classroom or otherwise, is automatically over time. So, if your hagwon has you putting in 10 hour days (minus a lunchbreak) without extra classes, you are still working 5 hours OT a week. Many of my co-workers had no extra classes, but the school insisted that they be there from 8.00am til 6.00pm with one hour for lunch. I'm bringing all this up today.

They even made us work 8 til 8 on Thursday and Friday at just one day's notice. We actually found out from our students. When we confronted the management, they said "Oh yeah, some parents didn't realise that their kids were going back to school on Aug 21, so we're running extra classes in the evening".

So, we have to work unpaid OT because Korean parents can't be bothered to find out when their kids go back to school.

Sorry, I'm ranting again.

MD

Mr. BlackCat · Joined: 30 Nov 2005 Location: Insert witty remark HERE

This probably won't help you now maddog, this is more for people in the future.

With situations like this you should clarify with your employer exactly how much OT to expect. My hogwan did the same thing my first year here, so in my 2nd year (different hogwan) I brought it up with my manager beforehand. I got the same run around, that I should be grateful for having the opportunity to live in Korea and, on top of that, actually receive a few days vacation. I stuck to my guns and said for every single extra class each day I would be teaching I would expect x amount, no ifs ands or buts. The nail in their coffin was when I found out how much each kid was paying for each extra class, did the math and showed my manager how much money the school would lose if I refused to do the classes (you have to be willing to walk away from the job). She finally gave in.

It's ridiculous really. They were standing to make around 6-7 million won off my extra classes for the 5 weeks and I was demanding to get the approx. 800,000 owed to me. I made up the lessons, the materials and was there 3 hours earlier and 3 hours later than this manager. In the end they made a clean 5 million+ off no investment besides rent, which they pay anyway for normal classes. Not to mention the 5 other FT who also taught extra classes and didn't get all the money owed to them. Greedy, unscrupulous, manipulative people. And they still managed to go out of business a few months later.