Sketchy sounding contract

[freefall]

I am only a high school graduate and therefore had difficulty finding a position teaching English. I found global crossroad, which does did not require me to have a college diploma to place me. It was recommended in a book that my mom purchased called The Gap Year Advantage, so I assumed it was legitimate. I paid global crossroad an initial $200 fee and asked to be placed by early July. They finally sent me my placement, and it doesn't look too good.

It's with Cherry English school, which is based in Shanghai. I found a bad review of them here: http://www.eslteachersboard.com/cgi-bin/forum/index.pl?noframes;read=7952.

Here are details of the sample contract. That's right, they only sent me a sample contract, with all details subject to change upon my arrival. Anyway:

RMB Y 4500. It doesn't say whether this is per month, week, etc., but assume it's /month.

Location: one of cherry english's sister schools. No more detail provided.

If I'm late to class, they give me a 100 yuan fee.

Furnished apartment with electricity and plumming, free internet.

Insurance after 30 days.

Flight reembursal up to $800 after 10 months. They claimed that they would reemburse me half-way after 5 months originally, but that claim is explicitly negated in my current sample contract.

They reserve the right to change my hours and I must cooperate.

I am not allowed to tell anyone what they're paying me. If I tell anyone, I have breached my contract.

The fine for a breach of contract is RMB Y 50 000! This, to me, is unbelievable. I will be fined if I breach any regulation imposed in the contract.

The contract overall seems vague and potentially devastating to me if my employers attempt to take advantage of certain stipulaions in the contract. What do you guys think? Thanks a lot!

[roddy]

The 'sister' schools thing is what would worry me - that probably means they'll rent you out to the highest bidder.

Fines for turning up late are a bit petty - any well managed school should just be getting rid of any consistently late teachers, not making a new income stream out of it. The flight thing is fairly normal.

Changing of hours could be dodgy - private schools do need flexibility, but you also need to know they wont give you all the 6-8am and 8-10pm classes. On this one you just need to trust the school to try and be reasonable.

Confidentiality is fair enough - although you just breached it already . . .

Breach clause - that's never going to be enforceable. Worst case is they withhold whatever money they already owe you - which is a pretty bad case.

Generally, any private school in China can screw its teachers over if it wants to, regardless of contract. All you can do is find one you think looks reasonable, do research, stand up for yourself when you get there, and be prepared to walk if necessary.

For $200, I'd expect Global Crossroads (who, if they have any business sense, are charging Cherry English at least that much and probably several times more for sending you) to come up with a few placements to look at.

I don't see any mention of visas. What happens there?

To be honest, as a high-school grad, there are limits to what you can expect.

[freefall]

I have a 90 day tourist visa--the contract says they will help me exchange it for a work visa. I read that this might anger the Chinese government.

Thanks for the other advice. I have been communicating with a family that says they can host me in exchange for helping their two children with English for four or so hours a day. Should I take up this offer instead of the job? The only thing is that I only asked to stay with them for a month, and plan to stay in China for a year. Will I be able to arrange for an apartment after that month and do private English lessons to pay my way?

[imron]

I have a 90 day tourist visa--the contract says they will help me exchange it for a work visa.

Any time you read this in a contract, it should set off great big loud warning bells. Which is not to say that this school won't keep their word, but SOOOOO many places use this a tool for taking advantage and cheating foreign English teachers that you should avoid any place that gets you to do this.

Basically if you agree to this and go and start working for them then if anything goes wrong (i.e. they decide to only pay you half of what's agreed, they decide not to pay you your return airfare, etc etc) then there's really nothing you can do about it, and because your visa expires in a short period of time you've got no choice but to leave the country out of pocket wrt salary and airfare reimbursement. Also, the "we'll get you a work permit when you arrive" is often just a ruse (though in some places it's not) and it's quite possible that they'll just get you to keep extending the tourist visa because they're 'having difficulties' getting the working visa (read it's illegal for them to employ foreigners).

Basically, the school can do anything they want, and you have no recourse against them.

[jbiesnecker]

If you don't have at least a TEFL certificate, be very careful about coming here and trying to get a job. You need to either have a college degree or be a "certified teacher" (which in most places means one of the various TEFL certificates) to legally get a work visa in China.

Even in the past it was difficult to get a tourist visa changed to a work visa without those things unless your employer had some real pull (major university for instance--I know I worked in one where they bent all sorts of rules like that). Now it's even more difficult as the police are cracking down on people entering with country with a tourist visa and changing it to a work visa (it was always illegal, but only recently enforced until 2005). I have a number of friends who have had to make the trip to Hong Kong to get their work visa processed, and without the right educational credentials they're not going to issue you a work visa in Hong Kong.

Do you know if you're going to actually be in Shanghai? You said the company is Shanghai-based, but their "sister schools" could be anywhere. I agree with Roddy that it sounds like you are going to get farmed out to the highest bidder.

If you are in Shanghai, 4500 RMB/month sucks, hard. Twice that, with an apartment, would be about the minimum I would take, though as you don't have the educational background you don't have much room to negotiate. Even in second-tier cities, depending on the workload, 4500 RMB/month is low. It's not like you can't live on it, but you can also make a lot more.

Also, Shanghai has recently begun cracking down on companies illegally employing foreigners. It's never easy to tell how much of these crackdowns are just smoke and mirrors, but it still isn't a great environment in which to do something that is certainly not legal.

This really sounds like a snow job to me.

[mr.stinky]

guys, you missed the big ones!

"They reserve the right to change my hours and I must cooperate."

sure, we said you'd be teaching 20 hours a week, but we MEANT 40 hours. all

terms subject to change?

"they only sent me a sample contract"

huh? 4500/month? that's only a sample....we could only get you 1500/month. so solly.

and homestay? "helping their two children with English for four or so hours a day"

what a great deal....for them. let's see....english tutors go for 100/hour....four (or so)

hours a day, five (or six?) days a week, four weeks...that's 8000 in tutoring fees per

month.

[freefall]

Thanks everyone for the valuable advice. Despite the bad vibe given off by Cherry school, do you think I should go talk to them anyway and see if we can negotiate a more favorable contract? I know you said that if they want to screw me, they will do this regardless of any agreements made on paper...

On a slightly different note: do you think it's possible for me to go to China and, without any significant plans, survive there? I'm basically thinking that with a little entrepreneurial endeavoring, I will be able to start up an English tutoring business to sustain myself or find a job by physically imposing myself in the offices of various small, rural schools. This would be my backup plan if the job and host family both fall through. Is this reasonable?

Thanks again for the help!