More Advice for English Teachers on Employment Relations at Korean Hagwon

by Brendon Carr

This weekend I got a nice message from a Korea Law Blog reader thanking me for the Korea employment law FAQ in the sidebar. It’s a popular download, with about 1000 visitors having taken the time to download over the last year. The reader, a foreign teacher of English about to sign a contract and come over to Korea to teach, asked whether it would be worthwhile to have a lawyer look over the contract before executing it.

English-teacher readers of the employment-law FAQ ought to be aware that while in the main the rules stated therein are generally applicable to their situation, some things might be different in their case. English teachers are not my target audience. Put simply, this is because they have no money—or, rather, not enough money—to pay for legal services to settle their usually very small disputes with the hagwon owner. For example, I fielded one call this year where I determined, after a lengthy discourse on what a horrible bastard the owner was, that the caller sought legal assistance in attempting to force the hagwon to pay £25 for a diploma misplaced by the school. So readers need to be aware that the target audience—managers and in-house counsel supporting multinational corporations’ businesses in Korea—may have different needs from theirs.

Setting aside, for the moment, the far more sensible advice DON’T DO IT! (because at this point prospective teachers are usually wedded to the idea, and being the naysayer is like trying to warn your friend his new fiancée is a horrible shrew), my first advice to someone intending to come teach English in Korea is to forget about the contract. So many aren’t honored and the cost and effort required to enforce a contract is greater than the benefit supposedly to be obtained through enforcement. Think of it as a set of guideposts for best efforts rather than a legally-binding document; I assure you, your Korean employer certainly views your contract this way!

Still, it’s often helpful when begging for promises to be honored to have obtained those promises in writing. Here are the key points to hit:

- If your employer has you shuttling around from site to site between in-class teaching engagements, that time is considered to be work time. If you teach split shifts of three hours at a time, and shuttle around between them, you’re a full-time employee. (Full-time, under Korean law, is more than 15 hours a week, just so you know.)

- You’re entitled to 10 or 15 days paid vacation (depending on whether the employer is on a five day, 40-hour workweek or not); if 10 days, you’re also entitled to one additional paid day off for “monthly leave”, which basically means you work two half-Saturdays instead of four.

- You’re entitled to participate in National Medical Insurance, workers’ compensation, and national pension except if you’re coming from certain countries which have a treaty with Korea on the subject. Unemployment insurance is a different story. Foreign workers generally don’t get unemployment—they get deported.

- You’re entitled to 30 days’ severance pay at the conclusion of the contract, provided you’ve worked a “full year” (which doesn’t mean 365 days exactly, but rather more like 11-1/2 months). Severance pay is never forfeited for any reason.

- You should require the hagwon to pay for your plane ticket in advance if they are promising transportation. Don’t be their lender. If you’re going to be paying for the ticket and being reimbursed, get reimbursed in a few installments at the beginning of the contract (1/3 each of the first three months or something like that) rather than letting the employer hold you hostage for a year waiting to get that ticket money.

Be aware that the Korean-national instructors are in a similar boat to you, but not the same boat. They are also frequently mistreated by their employer, having to endure the same kind of crazy oppression and broken promises—but they are also jealous of the “unearned” benefits that you, the foreign English teacher, receive because of your nationality. For example, a Korean instructor doesn’t get any assistance with housing, while foreign teachers usually do; neither do they get a plane ticket to some exotic foreign destination like your home country. Your salary is also higher than theirs, especially at the entry level. Bellyaching to your co-workers about broken promises is not going to earn you friends.

And finally, have enough money available to walk if you need to. Do not come 5000 miles around the world, to a foreign country, without a cash-advanceable credit card that has about $3500 in available credit on it—so you can have a place to stay, meals to eat, and a return ticket home if you’re screwed over by the hagwon. I get a lot of Friday night calls from desperate hagwon instructors looking for a white knight to intervene and restore order to the world by Monday morning, because the instructor doesn’t have enough money for Cup o’Noodles. And the sad fact is, the legal system doesn’t work with instant remedies, if any remedy is available at all. So there’s nothing I can do for these poor, benighted people.

Your Uncle Brendon can’t help you in the case of a dispute. There are a number of reasons, but the primary one is You can’t afford me and so we’re an employer-side practice. Similar divisions of practice area exist among firms in the US and Canada and elsewhere, so we’re not different. But I have already written here in Korea Law Blog and elsewhere on the web where you should go (and where I’ll be going if I ever become an employment-law plaintiff in Korea—I can’t afford me either) for legal help if you’re a hagwon teacher or company employee in dispute over pay, benefits, or unfair dismissal. (This means although I’ll gladly share what I know and think is relevant here on this blog, English teacher, when you call me in the evenings you’re really imposing on my free time. You’re not a client or potential client. Although I’m too much of a softy to say so directly to those who call, it’s tiresome. So save it for real emergencies, please.)

For the purpose of fairness, in the “Don’t Teach English in South Korea” warning page I linked above, there are a number of hyperbolic statements which are simply not true. It’s not true that if you’re not Korean, you have no legal rights; unless you have the misfortune of getting branded “Enemy of People” the courts are fair and evenhanded on nationality. It’s also not true that an English-language contract is “worthless”. (I’ve covered this in an earlier Korea Law Blog entry this summer.) Still, I have to agree with the overall conclusion, which is that Korea is not a good place for foreign teachers of English to come and work.

1 Responses to This Entry

1. gbnhj on August 25, 2008 @ 10:28 am

   For those interested in teaching English in Korea, caution is definitely merited. Like so many teachers I know, I was taken advantage of by a Korean employer. In my case, I examined several contracts prior to signing, and chose to work with an employer who offered not only competitive remuneration, but also most clearly explicated a set of rights and responsibilities in its contract. Later, that employer violated our agreement, yet (as Brendon describes above) the monetary value was insufficient to justify the expense of seeking enforcement of the contract. Unfortunately, it is a trick that Korean employers know all too well: Fleece your employee, particularly the non-Korean, but not so much as to invite a legal enforcement of the contract.

   These days, there is an interesting development in the English-language education market which may offer interested teachers some respite from abuse. Non-Koreans who are married to Korean nationals are legally opening businesses of their own, and many small institutes are popping up in neighborhoods throughout the country.

   These businesses are being run, in general, to the greater benefit of both students and employees. In essence, the owners offer a competitively-priced service (which they actually supply), while also offering stable and supportive employment for both teaching and administrative staff. These businesses are profitable, yet salaries and conditions are at or above market standard.

   My advice to any persons interested in teaching in Korea would be:

   * Be prepared - there is a real possibility that you may be taken advantage of. You can mitigate the risk if you have friends working in Korea who can steer you toward potentially more secure places to work, but even then you should prepare yourself for the possibility that your employer will cheat you.

   * Seek out opportunities for employment with non-Korean owner/operators. While this is no blanket assurance that you will be immune from getting ripped off, you will be far, far ahead of the curve. In many cases (frankly, in every case of which I’m aware), non-Korean employers simply want you to do your job, and fully intend to pay you for it. In some cases, they will have also been cheated by their employers, years ago, and want nothing better than to differentiate themselves and their business from that type of workplace.

   * Don’t come to Korea without money. Understand that you are taking a great risk in moving to a country where you don’t speak the language and as yet have no network of support, to work for an employer you don’t know. There is also the additional concern that while the employer might be good, the job might be bad - it’s not right for you, and you just don’t like it. If any or all of these describe you, you need to have readily available funds in order to exit. If you don’t, then you - not your employer, and not Korea - are increasing the risk of having a problem.

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