Validity of penalty clauses for breaking contract

[Chef David]

I have relocated to another country
before my departure I was 10 months into a 1 year contract,and several occurance of "bad deals" came to my attention regarding my employer and previous employees, so I was advised to leave on payday.

i did,and half surprinsingly my wage for october wasn't on my account.

are employers entitled to hold and not pay staff for a month that has been worked.

[Belgian Pie]

Oh, you're gone already? Your stay in taiwan was only short lived ... never had the chance to meet you ... and try your cooking.

I guess everything goes in taiwan ... when it comes to not paying employees ...

[Chicken]

A brief summation of the law as I sees it: They can fine you for not filling the contract. I think (maybe) the fine can be up to 20hrs.

They can not hold pay (deposit) before you do anything bad. They can only take $ out of your last pay, not your first ones.

If you were here you could fight it and probably win, but "I was advised to leave on payday" means you should have had your $ in hand before you left. That way your only out a week not a month's pay.

[brian]

before my departure I was 10 months into a 1 year contract,and several occurance of "bad deals" came to my attention regarding my employer and previous employees, so I was advised to leave on payday.

I am assuming that you were advised by other teachers and not by the school. Bad advice if you ask me, and it seems that had you checked this before you did the runner rather than after the fact then you may have made a different decision. While I can understand your motivations for doing a runner I am not sure that you have acheived your objectives.

First off, and you may not yet be aware of this, but your employer is required to notify the CLA of your premature departure. The CLA will automatically blacklist you from ever obtaining a work permit to teach in Taiwan ever again. While this may not be a concern for you at present it is probably best for others not to limit their options in this regard as the return of those who never planned to return is not unheard of occurence.

The blacklisting can be appealed but the only basis of the appeal after the fact would be proving that you did give more than 30 days notice of your intent to leave. If your employer was treating you badly, forcing you to work illegally, or threatening not to pay you then you should have raised these concerns with the CLA prior to you choosing to breach the contract. Once you have breached the contract yourself then these other concerns become nothing more than a case of 'he says, she says'.

are employers entitled to hold and not pay staff for a month that has been worked.

What does you contract say about this?

Most of us have a clause regarding contract breach that states a penalty for breaching the contract. We agree to this when we sign the contract. It is not unheard of for schools to forgo the levying of this penalty if the teacher works with school in finding a replacement, but then there are also cases of schools taking the full penalty even though there were legitimate reasons for a breach (i.e. death of a family member back home etc). Penalizing the party that breaches a contract is pretty standard practice and totally legal and not something that is restricted to the employment contracts of foreign teachers.

[Funk500]

All very good Brian, but I believe the OP was a chef rather than a teacher.

[Chef David]

All very good Brian, but I believe the OP was a chef rather than a teacher.

it's ok,even so he did point me out to some interesting details,in my contract there are no part about breaking contracts,so I'm not sure where that leaves me.

the day I left they indeed contacted immigration and police station,altough this all sounds dramatic,it seems like standard procedure.

I'm not really bothered about being black listed, we should never say never but I'm fairly confident that i won't need to get back to Taiwan again.

as probably anyone else, I'm not keen on working a whole month for free, so I hope they will resolve this in a good manner.

thanks for the contributions

[Chef David]

Oh, you're gone already? Your stay in taiwan was only short lived ... never had the chance to meet you ... and try your cooking.

I guess everything goes in taiwan ... when it comes to not paying employees ...

yeah,shortly after i arrived to Taiwan i thought I'd be able to come and sample some proper belgian delights and it turned out that you were no longer operating that shop, now it's my turn.....we both know the deal about Taiwan....
anyhow I'll keep posting here anyway since this MB is much more than just about Taiwan.

I'll PM you my new whereabouts so one day you might still want to come and visit

[TainanCowboy]

Tête de merde d'au revoir...

[Chef David]

A brief summation of the law as I sees it: They can fine you for not filling the contract. I think (maybe) the fine can be up to 20hrs.

oh,so that's only a 10th of what I'm owed

If you were here you could fight it and probably win, but "I was advised to leave on payday" means you should have had your $ in hand before you left. That way your only out a week not a month's pay.

see,that's where it's all very confusing, we always got paid on the 6th in that company,the pay is usually wired on staff's accounts the 6th early morning(sometime even at 00.01 on the day) but that morning i didn't received anything until my plane was to leave around noon.
i then contacted other staff members who told me they had their pay wired as usual,so I was indeed the only one to get shafted.

someone could correct me if I am wrong but, aren't wages arrangements made a few days in advance?I mean,the financial dept of a workplace doesn't actually make payments to employee's accounts the very morning on payday???do they??

if it's all made in advance,then it prove that they were aware of my intensions

[Chef David]

Tête de merde d'au revoir...

almost....like everything you do.....