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zang
Joined: 18 Dec 2008
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 Posted: Sat Dec 27, 2008 7:32 am Post subject: english channel --not paying severance, pension, or flight |
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| a close friend who worked at English Channel until recently did not receive severance pay or the 1 way flight reimbursement after completing the 1 year contract. also found that English Channel was deducting pension from each months pay but was not putting it into the pension account. |
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mountainous
Joined: 04 Sep 2007
Location: Los Angeles
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| Posted: Sat Dec 27, 2008 4:00 pm Post subject: Korean Employment Fraud |
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| Always get paid up front when making a deal w/a Korean. This includes airfare and the month's salary. The return airfare and bonus shall be held in escrow. There are exceptions but English Channel fails to meet any of them. |
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PigeonFart
Joined: 27 Apr 2006
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| Posted: Sat Dec 27, 2008 6:04 pm Post subject: |
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| Agreed....the lack of trust is an issue when doing business in this country. |
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ChinaBoy
Joined: 17 Feb 2007
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| Posted: Sat Dec 27, 2008 8:04 pm Post subject: |
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| English Channel is a notorious cheat and this is absolutely no surprise. |
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Geckoman
Joined: 07 Jun 2007
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| Posted: Mon Dec 29, 2008 12:04 am Post subject: Re: english channel --not paying severance, pension, or fli |
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| zang wrote: |
| a close friend who worked at English Channel until recently did not receive severance pay or the 1 way flight reimbursement after completing the 1 year contract. also found that English Channel was deducting pension from each months pay but was not putting it into the pension account. |
What branch did this happen at? |
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zang
Joined: 18 Dec 2008
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| Posted: Mon Dec 29, 2008 7:03 am Post subject: |
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| a branch affiliated with the head office. At least one "independent" English Channel has changed it's name, not sure if more are following suit. Apparently this person is not the only one to be screwed out of pension or severance recently-other recent employees have stated the same problems to my friend. |
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Whistleblower
Joined: 03 Feb 2007
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| Posted: Mon Dec 29, 2008 3:42 pm Post subject: |
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| English Channel are in financial trouble and they would do anything to save money, so this is no surprise. Expect all teachers at English Channel to be without a job within 2 months maximum. |
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zang
Joined: 18 Dec 2008
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| Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2009 9:12 am Post subject: |
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| Apparently the pension office is currently suing EC for unpaid pension for numerous employees/ex employees. What options does a teacher have if they are in this situation and were not paid full salary/pension/severance/air fare? Labor Board? Hire a lawyer and sue? or just plain screwed? |
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Young FRANKenstein
Joined: 02 Oct 2006
Location: Castle Frankenstein (that's FRONKensteen)
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| Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2009 6:25 pm Post subject: |
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| zang wrote: |
| Apparently the pension office is currently suing EC for unpaid pension for numerous employees/ex employees. What options does a teacher have if they are in this situation and were not paid full salary/pension/severance/air fare? Labor Board? Hire a lawyer and sue? or just plain screwed? |
pension is filed through the pension office.
salary, severance, and airfare is filed through the labor board.
no need for a lawyer. IF you wish to file a lawsuit, you can do it on your own at the courthouse for 30-40,000 (depends on the amount you're suing for), or pay a 법무사 to file the suit for you (they're everywhere and will cost you about 500,000) |
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regicide
Joined: 01 Sep 2006
Location: United States
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| Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2009 6:37 pm Post subject: |
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| Whistleblower wrote: |
| English Channel are in financial trouble and they would do anything to save money, so this is no surprise. Expect all teachers at English Channel to be without a job within 2 months maximum. |
English Channel's business model was poor to begin with. ( giving private lessons and creating enormous overhead )
That combined with perhaps one of the worst attitudes any organization has towards its teachers, it is no surprise EC is where it is now. |
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SettleDown
Joined: 20 Nov 2007
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| Posted: Thu Jan 08, 2009 6:04 am Post subject: New teachers: AVOID THIS HAGWON! |
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Just another word of caution:
After a year, EC didn't pay my airfare, cheated me out of some of my pension cos they didn't pay into it, and they didnt completely pay the Health Ins. either.
The CEO and the Canadian guy at the top are completely dishonest. The manager at my office made life miserable. If they feel that they can cheat you and get away with it they will.
My friends remaining say EC is on the brink of BK and that pension, and airfares, etc. are not currently being paid.
Last edited by SettleDown on Thu Jan 08, 2009 8:49 am; edited 1 time in total |
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recoba
Joined: 17 Aug 2006
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| Posted: Thu Jan 08, 2009 6:23 am Post subject: |
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I did post about this a while back...it comes as no surprise that they are in this state.
However, Whistleblower, don't you work as a recruiter for some other adult teaching hagwon or other? Wall St? In which case, maybe you should refrain from making these predictions of EC doom, as you have something to gain should they fail. Apologies in advance if I'm wrong about that, but please clear this point up. |
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birdflower
Joined: 18 Jan 2007
Location: Australia
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recoba
Joined: 17 Aug 2006
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| Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2009 9:01 am Post subject: |
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Birdflower, I dislike EC as much as any other former employee (probably moreso). But I'm curious to learn why you are so persistent in hunting them on daves?
Now that Bob has gone, there's no fun in drawing attention to how ridiculous the place is anymore! Unless he jumped ship to Maven...Maven are former EC franchises in disguise, beware.  |
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Shapur
Joined: 27 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2009 7:35 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| Birdflower, I dislike EC as much as any other former employee (probably moreso). But I'm curious to learn why you are so persistent in hunting them on daves? |
I can understand Birdflower's resentment, but at this point, the constant reposts of some relatively old complaints are really not adding credibility to the debate. (Not that there is really any debate about English Channel haha^^).
Might I humbly suggest that it would be better if Birdflower just let the facts speak for themselves.
The current posts are utterly damning and anyone of the literally hundreds of people out there who truly dislikes these turds just needs to keep clicking on the more current threads to keep them on the front page.
(It might be prudent to continue saving them however, in case English Channel gets some money and decides to waste it on removing negative threads again. Some of you may remember a few years ago when head office staff got caught pretending to be teachers on this forum and how quickly those original threads disappeared).
I recently quit English Channel and you can read about my experience of quitting in another thread on the jobs forum.
I was the very first teacher at English Channel and started working there when it was just me, my manager and 7 head office employees in one Branch at Yeoksam. In my time at EC I worked both as a teacher and in the head office for a total of about 6 years and as such I know more about this company, the personalities within it and the ins and outs of English Channel than anybody out there.
I have also suffered the most extraordinarily vile and relentless slander from these same head office staff and unfortunately also from more than a few toadying, jealous or just plain insecure teachers. I have more reason to hate English Channel and a large number of head office employees (and far too many characterless teachers who were happy to spread lies about me without ever having met me or having evidence beyond "what they heard") than the rest of you put together.
But in the end hate is an unproductive exercise. Life is too short people. Press flush and move on 
That said, here is my take on English Channel from someone who has seen both sides over virtually the entire course of the company's existence and who was one of the 4 longest serving employees. The other three are the CEO and 2 directors of the company.
English Channel has always inspired dislike and even hate from a really remarkably high proportion of former and current employees.
Of course that would have nothing to do with their relentless courtesy and their phenomenally positive attitudes towards their teaching staff  .
In truth they were always that way, even when they first opened they were quite extraordinarily rude and so many of the head office staff (particularly those nasty little Canadians) seemed to have an inexplicable hostility towards and even an outright jealousy of their teaching staff.
That attitude permeated their business right from the beginning (although it didn't come home to roost and start to get really bad until 2 or 3 years after their operation started which other posters have alluded to in other threads).
I think one small part of the reason is that those head office staff all made MUCH less money than the teaching staff, but that was really only ever part of the reason for their remarkable hostility.
A larger part of the reason was that when Kenny Lee formed the company by poaching everything he could from Direct English, the initial management was made up of all those who didn't fit in and couldn't make it at Direct English. (With a few talented exceptions who all quit within a year - to their credit and my regret). There were enough border line behaviors and psychoses evidenced by many of those head office personnel to fill a psychological conference for a week
I have NEVER seen so many nasty petty people gathered in one place
Unfortunately the upshot of all this was that the head office quickly established and kept a remarkably bad culture of bullying, unprofessionalism and slander that poisoned the whole company and established a dysfunctional work environment among English Channel management that never really changed.
Anyone who has witnessed the negative effects of even one workplace bully will understand what I am talking about.
English Channel head office had many and still has several. (Both male and female).
A very large part of why English Channel never grew and developed beyond a certain level is because the management spent the vast majority of it's time playing pointless political games and clawing at each other instead of trying to run the company well.
This combined with their piss poor salaries to guarantee that they never attracted any capable management and if by some miracle any head office management did show any talent their lives were made so difficult by the incompetent majority that they quickly quit.
Anyone who has actually visited or (tried to) deal with the head office will know what I am talking about.
Indeed it is so bad that I have met more than a few people who have only spoken to EC representatives on the telephone or during job interviews who have remarked about their extraordinary lack of professionalism and tendency to slander.
That is also why there was virtually no concrete action to do something or anything last January when the second batch of investors pulled their money out.
The inertia among management, and the sheer dysfunction of the head office by that point was so extreme that they were really incapable of working together to do anything much at all.
To be brutally honest I think there was very little talent and creativity or will left to do anything anyway.
They couldn't even stir themselves to take the most elementary cost cutting measures like closing their many unprofitable branches and getting rid of excess staff. And as of last month THEY HAVE HAD 15 MONTHS TO DO SO 
It's so negligent that it takes the breath away. No wonder the investors pulled out twice and they couldn't get any more.
Once again anyone who has dealt with the EC head office over the last couple of years knows the inertia that I am talking about. If even a simple task or request took another company a few days, it would take English Channel weeks to accomplish.
If it took another company a week, English Channel would take months, if they could manage it at all.
I could tell you so many true stories about those head office asshats that would turn your hair white and noone would believe... unless you have worked for English Channel yourself and met these clowns, even in passing. People who have done so have no trouble believing me at all
But this post is long enough^^.
I'll finish with a sentiment voiced by so many of my fellow teachers.
Never has a company and it's management so richly deserved to fail.
But don't let these clowns pollute your life. |
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