Korean Job Discussion Forums

[njdevils26]

Hi everyone,

I have been offered a contract to teach at Wonderland in Daejeon. The contract they offered me was written in English. My concern is that I have heard both from friends and from various organizations (such as the websites of the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, and an organization specializing in ESL/EFL legal resources called EFL-Law) that only a Korean-language contract is legally-binding in South Korea. However, when I bring this up with the recruiting agency, they tell me that the school only does the contract in English, that there is no Korean-language version available, and that an English-language contract is perfectly valid in South Korea. A brief chat with the Korean Consulate in NYC seemed to indicate the same, although I'm not 100% confident the representative fully understood my question. Clearly somebody is offering inaccurate information. I would appreciate if anyone might be able to provide some insight into this issue. Thank you!

PS: I have also heard about a seemingly prevalent practice of oral agreements taking precedence over written contracts and that this often leads to issues between teachers and employers. Any insight into this would also be appreciated, as they seem to be potentially related.

감사합니다!!!

[cruisemonkey]

You have entered a legal 'grey area'... and what people are not telling you is -

If a contract is written in Korean and translated into English, under Korean law only the Korean-language version is binding.

A contract written only in English is perfectly legal. However, English is not the language used by the Labor Relations Commission or any Korean court of law... and in coming to a decision, the commission or the court must rely on a translation. Hense, your (future) lawyer should be fluently bi-lingual.

That being said, in K-land, while contracts (theoretically) carry the legal weight they do in the 'west', culturally they do not.

Be very wary of an English-language only contract. If a Korean-language version is not available, the contract can mean virtually anything (depending on who's translating it); and the employer will likely have their own version of what he/she understood it to mean. Understand?

[Carla]