Not to minimize the obvious cheating this school did on your pay, these couple things you mention here are not very common at any cram school I’ve had any connection with in the past 5 years. Most cram schools I know of pay per class hour… period. No pay for sick days, vacation days or national holidays.
No - never heard of an English teacher getting a new year’s bonus, either. Sick days - not unheard of, but very rare.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a buxiban/anquiban/kindy offering a month-salary bonus, and have definitely never met a teacher who’s received one.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a buxiban/anquiban/kindy offering a month-salary bonus, and have definitely never met a teacher who’s received one.[/quote]
The Chinese New Year bonus is for the Chinese staff only. 
I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a buxiban/anquiban/kindy offering a month-salary bonus, and have definitely never met a teacher who’s received one.[/quote]
The Chinese New Year bonus is for the Chinese staff only. [/quote]
That’s what I thought, although my wife never got one when she was a teacher. Well, I think she got $600 once.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a buxiban/anquiban/kindy offering a month-salary bonus, and have definitely never met a teacher who’s received one.[/quote]
The Chinese New Year bonus is for the Chinese staff only. [/quote]
That’s what I thought, although my wife never got one when she was a teacher. Well, I think she got $600 once.[/quote]
It’s a very hush hush situation at every school I have ever worked at. The Chinese staff were always instructed/ordered not to tell the foreign staff that they received bonuses. One boss even threatened to fire them if they told us. :aiyo:
There were no foreign teachers at my wife’s schools, they exclusively used foreign-educated Taiwanese. Maybe that’s why - give them the worst of both worlds.
I don’t know what to tell you. My wife always receives a 1 to 1.5 month bonus at Chinese New Year. However, she did say that bonuses, even for Chinese staff, were becoming smaller and more difficult to get due to the economy.
I don’t know what to tell you. My wife always receives a 1 to 1.5 month bonus at Chinese New Year. However, she did say that bonuses, even for Chinese staff, were becoming smaller and more difficult to get due to the economy.[/quote]
Mine started a new job (not teaching) in January and she’ll definitely get a bonus next year. Hell, they even gave a small bit this year and she’d only been there a month.
My wife got a 1 year CNY at her company and I got 7 months in the private sector in Taiwan. Mind you, this was before the economic downturn and it was outside of educational services.
My advice for people in educational services is to demand such benefits when you are negotiating your package. Tell the laoban you want the negotiated salary but also the same holiday bonuses as the other staff get as a matter of fairplay and solidarity. If they start telling you sob stories about how their wage is lower than yours, start laughing, fart or burp loudly in front of them (say taike under your breathe), and wave/kiss your passport and tell them your cultural outlook is to adopt the best of different cultures and ignore the nastier elements.
Tell them there are lots of Asian schools around Asia looking for a white, educated face and tell them they should hire Mainland Chinese from Western China to teach English at their school [and mention you will tell the parents this)–cuz that’s the peasant conditions they are offering. Make a really nasty cackle laugh and give them a smirk before walking out. 
Enough people do this, and wages and benefits will go up really quickly.
Of course, that’s Chewy’s style of confrontation in labour negotiations 
(grandpa was a union steward), but I’ve never tried such strategies in educational services. 
Would be entertaining to watch though.
Eventually, everyone gets what they’re worth.
Oh dear. Suddenly feeling a bit depressed, tt.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a buxiban/anquiban/kindy offering a month-salary bonus, and have definitely never met a teacher who’s received one.[/quote]
The Chinese New Year bonus is for the Chinese staff only. [/quote]
That’s what I thought, although my wife never got one when she was a teacher. Well, I think she got $600 once.[/quote]
I had a couple of NY bonuses when I lived and taught in smalltown Taiwan. If I remember correctly the first one was $5000 and the second one was $2000
Kungchiao has stunning bonuses…but I’ve never gotten one. I got resigning bonuses at Joy school 9 years ago…
but I’ve gotten to the sad conclusion that teaching kids IS my bonus:)
I’ve never heard of cram schools offering New Year bonuses either.
Most full-time staff still work on per hour pay but with a guaranteed amount of hours per month.
The general idea is to save money by these stingy cram school employers.
Why would any “Western” teacher expect a CNY bonus? Can you look back and consider what you did to deserve it? Especially so, if you are on salary. You are making many times more per hour, figured on actual hours worked, than the staff and it’s, in all probability, not your culture. Did you give your boss a Christmas present? Probably not, if so, well, your a good person and s/he will think your great but still, you have, or probably not, worked the many extra hours that the staff has worked at a MUCH reduced wage. Hell, if you want a little extra in the pocket go west young man/woman, go west. You can get a beutiful tie or some socks.
The staff here work their ass off for very little and if they get a little extra so rejoice with them. They will make your job easier. Good on 'em.
JMHO
[quote=“Enigma”]
The staff here work their ass off for very little and if they get a little extra so rejoice with them. They will make your job easier. Good on 'em.
JMHO[/quote]
What gives you that impression? The office staff at my old school only did 35 – 40 hours a week.
Bollocks. 6% holiday pay is my culture, given out at Xmas time, just before the holidays.
I get a bonus in the Yook.
How about I worked my fool head off? How about I’m hard working, dependable and get overwhelmingly high ratings from my trainees and positive reviews by my employer? How about I am an employee of a company in a country where bonuses are customary?
False assumption and inappropriate comparison.
I am not on a salary, but on a per-class-hour pay, but if you want to figure on an actual-hours-worked/traveled basis, my pay shrivels. Just yesterday, for 3 hours of actual pay, it monopolized over 7 hours of my day. I had about 30-45 minutes prep time, an hour and a half travel time between two clients’ offices plus a pit stop at the office to pick up a text book for one of the trainees and another couple hours of hours between classes where I basically had to kill time because it wasn’t enough time to do anything else. I went to a coffee shop and updated a proposal for a class that will resume later this month and replied to a couple e-mails. So this grand hourly pay you talk about was cut by 2/3.
Pay me hourly, from start to finish. Pay me sick days, vacation days, national holidays, typhoon days and client cancellation days. Pay me for all the work I do from course design, class preparation, searching for material, administrative work, travel between assignments, meetings, phone calls and everything else I currently have to do now on my own, unpaid time. And pay me the “bonus” which is customary for most every other worker in this country. I use quotations around bonus because it is not a bonus in the technical sense, but part of the expected base salary of most workers that is just held until the end of the year. It is expected and calculated as part of their pay, but conveniently left out when comparing their pay to that of the under-worked, overpaid foreigners…
Don’t get me wrong. I am not unhappy about my situation, but I am frustrated by this notion that I am somehow overpaid for my work.
As for Christmas, I didn’t buy my boss back home a gift either. Unless there is an agreed upon office gift exchange, that seems inappropriate. It’s not customary in the US either, as far as I am aware of, like an annual bonus is in Taiwan.