Korean Job Discussion Forums

[farzfive]

Are there any other places to have a work contract reviewed aside from the stick thread in this forum?

What type of lawyer would I have to get in touch with to have one properly reviewed?

[air76]

It honestly isn't worth your time and certainly not worth your money....your contract is only somewhat enforceable here anyhow.

Honestly, I think that other teachers are going to have a better idea of what clauses are unfair, missing, or need alteration than a general lawyer who has never taught ESL in Korea.

PM PatrickGHBusan and he will most likely help you out.

[Troglodyte]

Cut and paste it to the contract review thread. Someone will look at it and give some input. But really most contracts are cut and pasted from one of a few templates that recruiters seem to have. They adjust a few things but it's mainly the same.

When reviewing the contract, it's useless to suggest changes to it. Finding the red flag items is not so that you know what changes to request, it's simply so that you know whether or not to accept the job offer. If there are too many shady points in the contract, then it's a sign that the recruiter/school is shady. Even if they make the changes you request, they will still be a shady employer and cheat you. Contracts here are not as important as they are in the West. Here they are simply a guideline. Yes, in theory they are enforceable but usually Koreans use them as a guideline and negotiate later. Don't waste your money on a lawyer. Just get someone on this board to review it and then decide if you want to accept the offer.

[air76]

[Troglodyte]

Sure. If you're RENEWING a contract, then you can negotiate. If you're looking for hogwan jobs from abroad, you have no way to know whether the employer will actually stick to the changes that you put in the contract. If you see BS in the contract, then sure, you can change it. They may say "ok", but that doesn't mean it will be ok. If they put shady stuff in the contract then then it tells you something VERY important about that employer. Care to guess what that is? Don't set yourself up by negotiating with someone who is potentially dishonest. Just turn down the contact.

If you all that you want to change is things like salary, sick days, holidays, etc. then go ahead. You can negotiate those things (to some extent).

If the OP was considering having a lawyer look at it, then I guess that he wants to know if there are points that contradict the law or that would put him in a difficult situation. Other experienced teachers can point those out to you just as well as a lawyer (probably more so if you were going to contact a lawyer outside Korea).

Too many new teachers think that Korea is like North America, where contracts are sacred. Here they are not. If you come here without knowing that, you're setting yourself up for potential problems later. If you see shady stuff in the contract, be cautious. True, some schools just copy and paste in a contract from the web. Some get the contract template from the recruiter. If they seem like a good place (get a reference from a FORMER teacher) then you can ask them about the questionable points in the contract. Maybe they didn't know any better. But if they haven't worked with foreigners before and they think that those shady things in the contract are ok, then they may also be willing to treat you the same way that many small business owners treat their Korean employees. Believe me, that's one of those times that you don't want equality.

[mr.whiskers]

[ontheway]

[TheUrbanMyth]

[air76]

[curlyhoward]

air76 has made some very good points. One of my friends negotiated 20 classes a week at a lesser salary, and this was in the first contract. In negotiating, he discovered the director needed someone to pull up the slack for the other foreign teachers. However, the director had never thought about someone being willing to work for a lesser salary. Yep, 4:00-8:00, Monday-Friday. The other teacher and I, 3:10-10:10... Not a bad negotiation considering he was only making 200,000 less per month than I and the other teacher.

ontheway and more of his crappy advice...

[Troglodyte]

I'm not saying that all hogwan owners are evil. I even said that some of the contracts are bad because the school owner just copy and pasted the contract from a website or received it as is from a recruiter. Sometimes they just don't know that what's in the contract is illegal. In those cases, you can point it out to the school and if they say "Oh. I didn't know that. Of course, we'll change it." then you're probably ok.

What I mainly wanted to tell the OP (and other new teachers coming here) is that they should be alert for odd things in the contract that don't seem right. I'd also recommend that if they are in doubt, to turn it down. Sure, everyone has doubts about different things, but you have to use your best judgement and decide if you think it's not on the up and up. There are a lot of shady hogwan owners out there. Enough that you have a good chance of working for one if you aren't careful.

To clarify, the big shady things that you might find in a contract, job advertisement or from questioning during the interview are things such as no pension or no health insurance, deductions from your pay as penalty for things, and the all time favorite "you can be fired for other reasons not specified in the contract at the boss' discretion". Some other things taken alone aren't a big problem but should be a warning if there are too many of them. These type things are working Saturdays (or rather, not having 2 consecutive days off per week), lower than normal salary, more hours than is normal, airfare reimbursed after ___ months, being paid on the 15th day of the following month, no or limited sick days, few holidays (or holidays that you can't choose the timing of)... and the list goes on. If you just see 1 or 2 of these, then yes, you can probably negotiate it. But if you see a bunch of them, then you have to realize that it's not the job for you. If you see too many things in the contract that contradict labor laws and the employer tries to find a loophole in the law (or convince you that he's found one) that allows for those things, then don't negotiate. Turn it down.

There are plenty of jobs here. The big reasons that people are not getting job offers for a couple months are that A. they only use 1 or 2 recruiters, B. they are too selective about where they want to work, and C. they are trying to set up a job too far into the future. You can be selective about jobs here. You don't need to take the first contract that you're offered.

Sure, you can negotiate some stuff. Sure, there are honest employers here (plenty of them). But if you have no way of knowing whether the owner is honest or not, then why go half way around the world on the word of a stranger? People need to use their better judgement more often. You don't need to reject every contract that has one little thing in it that isn't right. That's not what I'm recommending. What i'm recommending is that you use your common sense and decide whether the original contract had too many questionable things in it, especially in light of the fact that you have fewer (enforceable) rights here in Korea than in your home country and contracts don't hold the same weight here as they do back home. If the employer seems shady, why take a job with them?

Most of the people that come on there and complain that their boss shafted them, probably could have known in advance if they had just posted a copy of their contract to the contracts sticky here - before they accepted that job.

[TheUrbanMyth]

[ontheway]

[PRagic]

Way, way back when I took my first and only hakwon job, I had a couple lawyers in the family go over the contract and make a few changes. The Koreans were confused by the effort, signed off on all the changes, and then laughed about it when I finally got here.

If you're paying for it, don't bother. Go with common sense as it's just a piece of paper to your average employer. Some can't even understand the English and just consider it a necessity for the visa process.

[OculisOrbis]