Topic: Unethical Business Practices

[accurate reporting]

Admin Note -- This thread was split off from a thread in the TEFLWatch Thailand forum. In a previous thread we talked about teacher expectations, here let's talk unethical or downright crude business practices. Please no naming specific institutes here.


Contracts - instead of people just making generalizations about them we should identify specific clauses that employers slip in.
For example some language schools have used the old 'deposit' - ie take money from your salary saying you will get it back if you fulfill your contract.  Then another is to deduct money from your salary saying it's a saving scheme and you get it back when you complete your  contract.  I got stung on the first by good old **** in 1997 but after that I just walked about from dodgy contracts. 

[Rick_BKK]

I have always felt that the 10 or 11 month contracts offered by most of the teaching agencies in Bangkok, amounted to an unethical practice. If people work for you they are entitled to some holiday pay, and full time employees should be paid 12 months a year not 10.

[Uncle Che]

If a person signs a 10 month or 11 month contract then they know what they are getting into ahead of time. Unethical would be schools and agencies that hire someone the first of May on a 12 month contract and then at the end of March or the end of February they end the contract early because the teacher won't sign on for another year.

[Rick_BKK]

I guess it depends what you mean by unethical. I think of unethical as being practices which while legal are morally questionable. Hence I feel that 10 and 11 month contracts fall into this category.

On the other hand terminating a contract early in order to get out of paying someone for the summer is more than just unethical it?s illegal. At least I think it?s illegal in Thailand to dismiss someone for anything less than gross-misconduct, once probation has been completed. However I am no expert in this regard so please correct me if I am wrong.

[MrQ]

I have worked in Korea and Thailand. I have to say that the practices I witnessed and heard about in Korea were a lot more serious than Thailand and they always involved a lot more money.

At the end of a contract here the school bumps you a months salary, it is a c**t but its not the end of the world 30,000B or so. In Korea I knew of schools that had bumped the whole of the final payment which would be the severance bonus (1months salary), the final months salary and the return airfare money, you could be looking at 2500 pounds or more 150,000B+.

That stings your pocket. I survived 6 months in Korea simply because I was green and had no idea of what to expect the school to be like. Looking back now I know that I can return if I want (if I am allowed is another factor) knowing how business are operated there.