I am currently in total disbelief over the absolute incompetence of the legal system here.
A school I worked at for two years stopped paying me in my second year there. The previous year we had all had this happen, but had been paid eventually, so we all toughed it out, believing the lies and expecting it to be ok. We were also attached to our classes and as a group we lacked solidarity.
Well, yada yada yada, I had to file an arbitration suit against them after leaving in that year, because unlike the previous year, they didn't pay. They lied and lied for months, nobody took action, and then finally I couldn't take it anymore.
So my girlfriend and I filed an arbitration suit, which took about a month to process... and we won.
Great news, right?
Well, no... because instead of just giving us our money, the criminal liars at the school were given a deadline of two weeks to pay, which they ignored. So we should get our money, right? Nope! We had to apply for an enforcement that wasn't processed until later, and then the school was given SIX MONTHS after that to come up with the money.
We were given a phone number to check on the status of our case with the judge, but he was only available on Tuesdays. I managed to contact him ONCE, and then for the rest of the six months, he TURNED OFF HIS PHONE. So the six months came and went, and the school stayed open for an entire YEAR, paying its teachers, giving them their missing backpay... until they couldn't. Then they opened up AGAIN this year.
Well, finally the courthouse sent a message to my phone 8 whole months after applying for enforcement, one year and two months after filing for arbitration... a simple URL link that led to a letter explaining that my case had been terminated because there was no money available. They got away with not paying, and the owners are still incredibly wealthy and still have a school in Shanghai. I spent seven whole months living on half pay, not being able to pay off a mortgage, and then a whole year being told I would get my money eventually, only for it to end like this. It was over 100,000 rmb.
So yeah, it's still a corrupt piece of shit legal system and never lose sight of the fact that you're there for the money, not the kids... because that's the kind of attitude that will end up getting you screwed over.
Yeah, the first time a paycheck doesn't clear I'm out dawg. I'm guessing your situation will be even more common going forward. So many big expensive schools were built and there are just not enough students with the cash to pay.
I mean, yeah that makes sense... and is what I should have done. But you feel obligated to the students... even though they probably would have been ok.
I was working at a school and same thing happened, I gave my notice the first month we didn't get paid. Some of the other teachers gave me a hard time for 'abandoning the kids', I think they were put up to it by the boss who said i have no integrity.
The school doesn't care about the kids!!! Don't be pressured by that! Those children have parents, you are not that.
Anyway, that school closed leaving the kids to find new schools. And some teachers are owed 6 months salary + social insurance.
I never filed because my total was 40k ish and I was told it would cost money to get a lawyer etc, so I just take comfort from the fact that I lost as little as I could have and other teachers lost more.
That's just it... the parents might heap praise on you for being a 'good teacher', your class might be going extremely well, everything regarding your actual work might be wonderful... but those parents won't help you financially, won't even talk to you after they've gotten what they wanted.
Of course not, they are not your friends. I enjoy my relationships with the parents of my students, but they are customers. I take responsibility in my job and in taking care of the children. However if a school is like that then realistically the parents would be better off taking their money elsewhere also.
I think I gave their kids a solid education... which is what they care about. And that would have been disrupted if I had abruptly left. Some of them didn't actually have other options (coworkers kids) and some were being subsidized by their parents' work. Plus, it would have been an entirely different curriculum with no continuity.
I'm not judging those who do, but I don't think it's difficult to understand why some people stay... there's a built-in guilt trip that comes with the job.
Yeah I understood why my colleagues stayed, I just feel bad for them in the end. Thankfully they all managed to find jobs and took the students with them.
I'm sorry this happened to you! Hopefully you've moved onto a better things.
Of course not, they are not your friends. I enjoy my relationships with the parents of my students, but they are customers. I take responsibility in my job and in taking care of the children. However if a school is like that then realistically the parents would be better off taking their money elsewhere also.
It’s a shit situation, you have my sympathy.
I would say that your best bet is probably going to the Shanghai school and get a few of you to hold a protest there on an open day or similar. If the parents see things like this, the loss of just one student will probably be the equivalent to the amount that you are trying to claim for.
In the meantime, though I hope other people learn from our mistakes and never hang around at a school that is more than 72 hours late on their pay
Always be cautious about the protest in public in China, particularly for expats in current political environment, consult a lawyer on options before doing it.
Fuck dem kids. Worry about yourself
Wall Street, Meten and Webi were popular English language schools in China. They closed down, owing money to staff. Staff got exactly nothing through arbitration.
Because in case of a company going bankrupt, the government will hold the legal rep responsible. Though no sane owner will stay on as a legal rep, they typically ofload that responsibility to a nobody in the middle of nowhere for a couple thousand.
Then the government takes control of the AP/AR, having been a number of times in that position, other than a single call from the government, they really don't care. Meaning they are potentially sitting on a shitton of supposed payments coming in, but they really don't go after those payments. Vice versa they should also pay out creditors, but that's neither happening.
In Shanghai this responsibility is being shifted towards a law firm, my 5 ct's is that the lawfirm sends a sweet bill, gets paid and that's the end of it. So the government officials can write off their tasks and move on with their lives.
Whatever you do, as an individual but also as a company, never ever have debt outstanding. You will never get it back.
Because in case of a company going bankrupt, the government will hold the legal rep responsible. Though no sane owner will stay on as a legal rep, they typically ofload that responsibility to a nobody in the middle of nowhere for a couple thousand.
Then the government takes control of the AP/AR, having been a number of times in that position, other than a single call from the government, they really don't care. Meaning they are potentially sitting on a shitton of supposed payments coming in, but they really don't go after those payments. Vice versa they should also pay out creditors, but that's neither happening.
In Shanghai this responsibility is being shifted towards a law firm, my 5 ct's is that the lawfirm sends a sweet bill, gets paid and that's the end of it. So the government officials can write off their tasks and move on with their lives.
Whatever you do, as an individual but also as a company, never ever have debt outstanding. You will never get it back.
Should have left after the first month get a new job and move on buddy. I got screwed half a months pay when leaving a job this is why I left on the 15th 😂
My wife’s father was owed money from his employer and it was three years overdue. My wife sent a former classmate who was a kind of freelance debt collector to pay the former boss a visit at home. They had a chat and he agreed to pay two installments within 30 days . The classmate took 30%.
I’m not sure how he convinced the former boss to pay . We did not question his methods . Just happy to get the money from him .
Does this work across provincial lines? I'd definitely be interested in this if it's viable.
"Goons who break shit" resolves business disputes in China often to this day, but this kind of "negotiation" must occur behind closed doors and away from cameras to be effective.
So what's the name of the school ?
Shenyang International School. They changed the name from Shenyang Transformation (International) School after I left. I'm not even in the same province anymore, so I can't confirm what it is now, but that's what it was. I've heard they're down to 11 students (from over 100) because they have such a terrible reputation. They have a school in Shanghai called Shanghai Transformation School (I think) and they frequently used money from our school to pay the teachers there, who were apparently really impressed that they were paid full salaries and loved their working conditions. The owner's name was Lily Lee, and nobody really knows what she was doing behind the scenes, but she considered herself to be a Christian, which is why she loved the idea of 'Transformation'. All of the higher ups were some of the worst people I've ever met, not just in China.
There was some truly unbelievable shit that went down there while I worked there, and basically anyone could see what was happening... but we all deluded ourselves into thinking we had enough time and everything would be ok and the fact that she didn't actually give a shit about education meant we had a lot of freedom and control over what we were doing, which a lot of people liked. Also, it's not a big hub for ESL, so jobs are scarce there and a lot of us had Chinese girlfriends or wives that we would need to abandon if we left the city.
I had a very similar experience. Always settle it out of court and before labour arbitration. As soon as you start they will just shut down any discussions, god forbid if they decide to come after you for anything. Real lawyers fees are expensive
They had refused to talk to us for quite some time... they had their foreigner lackey do it. He sent out a letter to the parents saying we would all be paid.
I'll give you a worse one:
mom was/is owed 250k, court ruled in her favor, tried to offer payment fee and to reclaim by taking property/assets. great, right?
except, courts don't have jurisdiction to seize assets across provinces. best they can do is blacklist him, or send him to jail, if we wish to pursue for it, which court itself is too lazy to do so. fun shite
Well, that gives me even less hope, because that is what I am dealing with now.
It sounds like they were paid off and bribed because your school was still allowed to get away with not paying you for so long and your case was ignored. That's why I left because of the inconvenient bureaucratic system and the "laws" are effectively arbitrary and useless, even doubly so because foreigners don't have the same rights as citizens
I mean, maybe... but IMO it's more likely that the system is just shit. There are a LOT of people with unpaid wages right now, so the courts are overworked and understaffed. I think we actually do have the same rights as citizens... it's just that those rights are bad and the rich can do whatever they want and are very, very skilled at screwing people over.
Unreal. That's fucked up man
https://www.tasedu.com.cn/en
This is the school in Shanghai, by the way. Still going strong, it seems.
Lol thanks I was gonna say you gotta list it so nobody else gets screwed
Did you have a lawyer?
I thought the courts can freeze their business account for shit like this.
Though if somehow they colluded and the judge decided to just do nothing, there's actually nothing you can do. Trying to go public might nuke your stay in China.
100k is such a small amount for a school too. Shanghai intl school tuition is like 400k/kid/year.
If you want to freeze assets you need a practicing lawyer and then you need to put up capital equal to what you are trying to freeze, until the case is completed. This will take 2 years.
Expect minimum 8,000 RMB in legal & court fees for application. I wouldn’t go down this route for under 150,000 RMB. Likelihood of getting paid is close to nil.
I'm not sure if bribery was involved. It seems more likely that the courts are just really shitty and the fact that it happened so slowly and there were so many obstacles meant we probably never stood a chance. The school has basically collapsed at this point, and the owner has moved all of her money to Shanghai.
One thing to keep in mind, whenever there is a dispute (especially with money involved) - the Chinese person is always right. As a foreigner you have no say and not much that you can do.
Not necessarily. I know several foreigners who have won lawsuits here.
Including me. Twice.
No, it's more that the rich person is always right. Foreigners have it much better than the vast majority of the locals to the point where I actually feel bad about it.... but not too bad, because supply and demand isn't exactly a crime... unlike not paying a salary.
Did you miss the part where he won both his arbitration and the enforcement?
Backup of the post's body: I am currently in total disbelief over the absolute incompetence of the legal system.
A school I worked at for two years stopped paying me in my second year there. The previous year we had all had this happen, but had been paid eventually, so we all toughed it out, mostly because we were attached to our classes and as a group we lacked solidarity.
Well, yada yada yada, I had to file an arbitration suit against them after leaving in that year, because unlike the previous year, they didn't pay. They lied and lied for months, nobody took action, and then finally I couldn't take it anymore.
So my girlfriend and I filed an arbitration suit, which took about a month to process... and we won.
Great news, right?
Well, no... because instead of just giving us our money, the criminal liars at the school had as deadline of two weeks to pay, which they ignored. So we should get our money, right? Nope! We had to apply for an enforcement that wasn't processed until later, and then the school was given SIX MONTHS after that to come up with the money.
We were given phone number to check on the status of our case with the judge, but he was only available on Tuesdays. I managed to contact him ONCE, and then for the rest of the six months, he TURNED OFF HIS PHONE. So the six months came and went, and the school stay open for an entire YEAR, paying its teachers, giving them their missing backpay... until they couldn't. Then they opened up AGAIN this year.
Well, finally the courthouse sent a message to my phone 8 whole months after applying for enforcement, one year and two months after filing for arbitration... a simple URL link that led to a letter explaining that my case had been terminated because there was no money available. So yeah, they got away with not paying, and the owners are still incredibly wealthy and still have a school in Shanghai.
So yeah, it's still a corrupt piece of shit legal system and never lose sight of the fact that you're there for the money, not the kids... because that's the kind of attitude that will end up getting you screwed over.
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My pay check didn’t register on the normal 20th of the month. I was at the door of finance as soon as they clocked in the next morning. No pay no worker!
You stopped working same day or you give 1 month notice ?
My pay was in my account before lunch!
Name and shame the new school
What sad province is this
Liaoning. I doubt I would have had the same issues in Beijing or Shanghai.
If a school doesn't pay for one month, you just leave.
How much left for the mortgage?
Umm... not sure I want to give out that exact info on here, but it wasn't too hard to find a stable job elsewhere in the country and things are mostly back on track. It's not really the money that's so infuriating, it's the lack of justice.
Glad to hear the situation is good!
Well, it's not perfect and that set us back... but we also miraculously managed to avoid losing money on the apartment despite the real estate crash (popular spot, I guess), so things could be worse. I definitely don't think I got the worst of it overall... and hopefully my girlfriend will now realize China isn't some utopian society where justice prevails.
That sucks man, but if you think China is the only place where this kind of thing happens...it's not. There are so many ways people can do shitty things then ultimately just walk away. Happens in Australia and NZ all the time. Can't pay what you owe? Just declare bankruptcy and walk away.
I don’t know about NZ but that stuff isn’t allow to happen in Australia in any profession.
My sister had that issue too when worked in Beijing in the late 90”s. No pay for over 18 months. Eventually she quit. There was money somewhere just no money to pay the staff. This wasn’t a school.
I owned apartment in both countries where significant structural flaws were revealed and in both cases the developed walked away Scott free.
The topic here is wage theft, not apartment defects.
Wage theft (we call it this) is illegal. In Australia there a department called Fair Work Australia. You call them first when they don’t pay or you’re underpaid or owed any wages. If they don’t do anything and Fair work steps in they get fined and it escalates to the Tax office. Skipping tax means jail.
The topic as per the first sentence is that legal system here is absolutely incompetent . Because someone wasn’t protected. Which happens all over the world. If a company goes broke owing workers wages…sucks, but it happens. And in many instances the company just declares bankruptcy and walks away. To potentially their multi million dollar houses.
This can't be the end. Get a lawyer and keep continuing the lawsuit.
A lawyer has already refused to take our case. At this point, there doesn't seem to be much hope. The scumbags got away with it.
Contact Edgar on WeChat.
No. Edgar is the worst. My friend used him and he is disorganized and doesn't know what's going on.
Me pueden ayudar con wechat 🙏