Validity of penalty clauses for breaking contract

[ichbinjenny]

bump...

pumpkinslayer, et al: what ever happened to this? I'm very curious as I'm entering this situation right now.

My issue: Notice was given far in advance. One branch failed to find replacement teacher and is now holding me accountable for finishing the class. Tomorrow morning, I am contacting CLA. I followed their contract to a T (as to not get hit with their ridiculously high penalty clause) and they are playing games, now threatening to "meet the contract".

bump, bump, bump.

[Bad Andy]

he CLA's take on this is that there is little chance for a job finder to negotiate at the time of contract signing and might accept terms they are not totally comfortable with.

I think this is a very good point, although I am a newcomer here I have heard a lot of stories of this nature and this is my take on things:

If you are in Taiwan as a foreigner looking for work teaching English, it is not easy to find a job that doesn't specify a harsh penalty for contract breach, in fact it is all but impossible. Often the school will be unwilling to negotiate on this, especially if you don't have a lot of experience or qualifications, and you feel like even bringing the issue up might cause them not to hire you. It is not unusual, especially in these troubled economic times, for people to be in between a rock and a hard place with regard to work-- If you don't find a job to support yourself and get a ARC you might be forced to move back to your home country where things might be even worse in terms of job prospects. So there is considerable pressure to accept a job offered to you regardless of the contract terms if it will allow you to support yourself here. Also teachers are a dime a dozen right now so if you don't sign the contract, the school doesn't care, they'll just pull out another of the 20 resumes they got this month hire some other schmuck who will sign anything for 600 NT/hour or less.

It's like the Lupe Fiasco song "when niggas gotta eat, that's when shit gets greasy". In an ideal world we could all adhere to gentleman's agreements and there would be no need for contracts or legal disputes. But we don't live in that world, especially nowadays teachers often find themselves in a position where they just have to sign a contract for whatever job they can get and hope that if the school tries to enforce it strictly hope the CLA can bail them out. That's not something to be proud of, to be sure, but it's the law of the jungle and both employers and teachers know it so there's no point in pretending otherwise, a contract in this case is not a gentleman's agreement but rather a starting place for negotiations should things turn ugly.

[pumpkinslayer]

Old bump...

Sorry for this ridiculously late reply.

I contacted Phoebe from the CLA and told her who my boss was and how she could contact her. Phoebe hoped to get a different representative from the school who might be more willing to be reasonable. Unfortunately the school refused to send anyone other than the person I had spoken to the first time.

We had a final meeting where we settled on the 25% fine. The school then paid back what was owing me, minus the NTD3750 agreed fine.

I was amped for a big fight, but in the end just didn't want to push it any further. The $3750 was a hit I could live with, but legal costs, hell no.

@ichbinjenny - how did things turn out in the end?

@Bad Andy - My contract at my current company doesn't have any of these fines. But they're a "normal" company, so don't have the same special anti-foreigner kick the schools seem to have so often. Whether I'll ever sign a contract with a fine in it again will depend totally on how desperate for work I happen to be.

[xyu]

Good to see that you got it settled. 25% isn't bad at all.

Just out of curiosity from all you people with contracts. let's say, for example, that you have a contract for 13 months. When you fulfill that contract and continue to work at the school, do you then sign a new contract or is it like a cellphone plan where your contract is met and you simply continue to work?

If you have to sign a new contract, i feel that's really unfair because you'd most likely end up breaking contract no matter how long you've worked for them unless you somehow left during the small window you get between the previous and next contracts.

How does this work?

[CraigTPE]

Just out of curiosity from all you people with contracts. let's say, for example, that you have a contract for 13 months. When you fulfill that contract and continue to work at the school, do you then sign a new contract or is it like a cellphone plan where your contract is met and you simply continue to work?

If you have to sign a new contract, i feel that's really unfair because you'd most likely end up breaking contract no matter how long you've worked for them unless you somehow left during the small window you get between the previous and next contracts.

How does this work?

In my experience, and from my general understanding, if your ARC is linked to your job, the contract length has to be at least a year, and can be as many as 3 years. There is a mechanism, however, by which the contract can be canceled amicably by signing a standard 'cancel contract agreement', so it would be up to you to just not accept any contract terms that provide for penalties.

[scottgilham]

In my small opinion. Any kind of penalty is utter horse shit. We are sitting here talking about what us fair? A penalty is rubbish and should not be allowed.
Any school may fire you. Oh yes, you'll shout, tell the goverment, that'll teach them. Then go on a visa run, get new job, start over when you're half away around the world. Penalties suck ass. And if we leave for a better offer....so be it. They are just in it for the money too, like we believe they really want to teach the kids. A few, yes, but most, hold the phone.
Whenever or wherever you work, you should never have to pay anything.
Now Ill wait for the 'they have to tell the parents' argument.

[CraigTPE]

Responsible employees are paying the price for the irresponsible ones who came before. Businesses have been burned repeatedly by foreigners who flaked in the middle of a contract. My first two jobs were filling in for just such situations.

[Tobiasgar]

But it's not right to blame only foreigners for such things.. different people-different situations..

[Ovechkin]

what if there is nothing in your contract that states what the penalty for breaking the year contract? is it all good in the hood, fair game?

[upandover]

I"m somewhat confused by this whole thread

so if you break a contract without paying the penalty, you are blacklisted from working in taiwan period, or just from teaching?
so basically you just make a visa run and start from scratch?

and is it even legal for the company to levy penalties in the first place?

clarification please

thanks