Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Tobacco Dreams]

Friends on this forum:

Take it from a veteran of more than five years: Unium College in Busan is NOT an employer you should consider under any circumstances!

My severance pay is now more than four months overdue--almost five!--and they keep promising to pay it "next week."

The thing about Unium is that they put up a very slick front. They offer good pay (2.3 a month was offered one recent hire) and seemingly very good overall conditions.

Unfortunately, though, the "CEO" (not being sure if Dave will let me name him here, I'll just give his initials: P.R.) is a real Hwang Woo Seok type. To wit: liar, liar, liar!

I'm attaching below my posting on Unium as it appeared recently on the Seamonkey Korea blacklist ( http://seamonkey.ed.asu.edu/~jonb/blacklisted.html ):


Subject: UNIUM COLLEGE (Busan)-The Wrong Choice!
Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2006 23:08:06 -0800

Unium College (with three branches, all in Busan) is among the most deceitful, abusive, dishonest
employers in Korea . It is NOT a school you should go to work for under ANY circumstances. Not if you
expect to get paid, for a start.

My time at Unium extended from July 2005 to September 2006. Having completed a first one-year contract
in summer 2006, I then extended until September-clearly, in retrospect, a big mistake.

It's now late November 2006, and I have yet to receive the bulk of my severance pay from the first
contract, which was owed me, contractually, in July. The full amount remaining unpaid is 1,600,000 won
(over 1700 USD). I have called Unium many, many times in the intervening months (from my new home in
Seoul ), politely asking to be paid. Again and again, I've been made false promises ("we'll pay you next
week . . .") and am finally running out of patience.

I've chosen the word "deceitful" to describe this school's management with very good reason. Mr. P****
R*****, the "CEO," presents himself as Mr. Straight-and-Narrow-Church-on-Sunday-Christian. He prominently
displays Bibles in his office, and shows an unmistakable hiring preference for similar chapter-and-verse
Protestant types. If you don't know Korea well, you may not realize just how shallow and shambolic this
Korean "Christianity" can often be.

Ahead of my vacation time at Unium, on two occasions, Mr. R**** asked that I lie to my students about
going home to take care of my sick mother, or something equally creative, to justify my week-long
absences (something which I refused to do). The sheer brazenness of it - the complete disregard for
honesty�€”set off warning bells in my mind then, as it should in yours now, if you're thinking about going
to work for Unium. P**** R**** is a liar, a cheat, and a bad man. He shows no compunction.

I could bring forward many more examples of how Unium mistreats its teachers. Forcing them (as I was, at
times) to work 12-hour schedules, for instance, in addition to Saturday afternoons. To be sure, I was
always paid overtime for the additional hours-but my pay was often late (and was on one occasion, I'm
convinced, deliberately miscalculated to my disadvantage). The severance pay, once again, is now more
than FOUR MONTHS overdue, and I have little hope of ever seeing it.

I want to make it very clear that I'm not putting this report on the Web out of spite, or malice. My
sole desire is to warn other teachers against making the mistake I did. Don't be taken in by Mr. *****
R******'s sham religiosity. Don't go to work for an employer who will withhold your salary for MONTHS on
end, while making endless lies about paying you �€œnext week.�€� No one in the world deserves to be treated
this way.




-------------------
Tobacco Dreams

[Greekfreak]

If you sicced the labour board on them, they'd give it to you in no time flat. The longest I've waited for a severance is about a month, with one exception, which was purely out of the school's ignorance.

Is this the place towards the Daeyon Subway station? Lead the world?

[Tobacco Dreams]

[lemadre]

RBI, my recruiter, just told me about an opening at Unium in Namcheon. So I take it that I should turn down that position, right?

Do you have any tips on openings at quality schools starting early Jan or Feb?

[ilovebdt]

The Labour Board should have been your first port of call. Their number is 1350, press 7 for English.

ilovebdt

[venus]

[ilovebdt]

[pest2]