Are you an English teacher who has been added to the KFTRA blacklist? Well, don’t just bitch about it. Sue their asses.
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Don’t Get Mad. Get Even!
This entry was written by Robert Koehler, posted on November 14, 2007 at 12:38 pm, filed under Asides, Ministry of Barbarian Affairs. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.
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25 Comments
Do it!
Can the lawyer sue them anyway? I know squat about Korean law, but can’t a concerned interest group of some sort band together and file a lawsuit, just to get it taken down (not seeking monetary damages)? It seems like I’ve heard of groups like the “Association of blah blah blah” getting together just for lawsuits before but, granted, it wasn’t Korea.
i work at a korean school in china, and no sooner did i click that link did i see the name of our newest teacher near the top of the list. things that make you go hmmmmm. not sure what i should do if anything. just hope they aren’t on there for anything big.
No. 67 on the list is interesting - the foreign recruited have put a Korean recruiter on the list. It looks as though posts can be made by anyone on that site, and without any check being made as to the veracity of the allegations.
Perhaps that recruiter ought to contact the Bar Association as well.
# 1
Is this your way of amubulance chasing?
My name is on the list, I’m glad!
나이는 30대 후반이나 40대 후반쯤으로 보이며 뚱뚱한 편입니다.
Am I correct in thinking that one of these entries says she’s fat???
Pretty rough.
You think that’s rough? This is from another entry:
남편도 형편없는 놈이지만 이 여자 강사 한국에 발 못 붙이게 해야합니다.
No, it’s not. I wouldn’t take a case for a group of English teachers if you paid me a million dollars. But especially more so since you won’t.
This is not because of any fault of the teachers. It’s because the hagwon owners are among the worst human beings in the world and I can’t stand to deal with them, and can’t compel others in my office to do it either.
But there definitely is a case there. A case for somebody else, with a stronger tolerance for nonsense than I have, to handle. The Bar Association legal aid might do it, but I would guess they’ll run out of energy quickly. Form a group of aggrieved teachers, 100 strong, and each pay a private lawyer W500,000 to fight for you. That would be W50,000,000 to the lawyer — almost enough to cover the aggravation of dealing with the scummy hagwon owners — and relatively affordable for the teachers. You probably could win (uncollectible) damages of W1,000,000 - W2,000,000 each for defamation.
#7: Excuse my ignorance, but does that read something like her husband has no feet?
yes i can’t work that last one out either - toenail something?
translates to,
not let (them) set foot (in the land).
Yes, but it’s the “her husband is a rotten bastard” part I found a tad rude.
@#8
Brendon, not to derail this too much, and I’m sure you’ve probably touched on this line of thinking elsewhere… but doesn’t it bother you that foreigners — maybe just transitory English teachers, but foreigners like you and I nonetheless — have such little recourse in the legal system here? I know you have talked about your reasons for not taking on the run of the mill English teacher case, so this isn’t really about that. Who is out there “fighting the good fight,” as it were. We saw a little while ago a fellow blogger, Zen Kimchi, taken to court for badmouthing his former boss. The libel laws say, basically, that a person can’t harm the reputation of another, even if the allegations are true. So is anyone pushing for the same protections for foreign residents? The hypocrisy here is staggering, and I really wish there were some hope on the horizon for us lowly English pushers.
It’s nonsense to say that foreigners have little recourse in the legal system. Foreigners have the same rights as a Korean (excepting the visa issue), and if you go to court you’ll get the same shake — in almost all cases (there are some bigots to be found even on the bench) — as a Korean.
If you go to the National Labor Relations Commission and file a complaint, your complaint will be investigated and acted upon just as a Korean’s. If you file a civil suit, you will get docketed and heard just like a Korean. But as a plaintiff, you have the burden of proving your complaint.
If you sit on your thumb and impotently grouse about things, well, then you won’t get much accomplished. Don’t like how you’re being treated? Sue. Just like a Korean.
That the legal system doesn’t operate in English for your convenience is not the same thing as having no recourse.
Good idea about a suit against the black list. Some serious collective action problems to overcome, though, organizing individual English teachers. Many don’t have a long term interest here, and more likely to exit than use voice. How about a class action suit brought jointly by NGOS likely to support labor rights, such as Chamyu Yundae or Citizens for Justice? Instead of English teachers donating money, which is hard to imagine happening, English teachers could sign an on-line petition to abolish the list. Anyone active in KOTESOL? I don’t know much about it, but it is an organization in which foreign English teachers participate, that might have an interest.
Kotesol, as far as I know, doesn’t touch these issues. It’s not really the role they try to play.
Korean NGOs or “civic groups” collect money from their members, and from sympathetic corporations (usually via threat) as well as from the government. Some of this money gets spent on the lawyers who do their bidding with the lawsuits.
What I propose is similar to formation of an ad-hoc NGO.
I recommend that the English teachers in Korea make more effort to teaching and less effort to drinking, drugs, kiddy fiddling, and being fat so they don’t need to be worrying about being on this list.
Great dialogue going on here….I’m just a little depressed that I can’t get the traffic on MY site
I didn’t even know there was a discussion going on about it here because for some reason the trackbacks didn’t work. But its’s nice to get talked about nonetheless.
I have to agree with Mr. Carr about dealing with the hagwon directors as well as his comments about the legal system here. Just because everything is in Korean doesn’t make you a victim. It just makes you work harder to get justice. However, a question for Mr. Carr: How does pro bono work in Korea compare to that of say the US? Or for that matter lawyers willing to work on contingency? In the states, we have bulldog lawyers that would sue your mother for overcooking your steak if they thought they could get a contingency out of it. I could be wrong, and stand corrected if I am, that contingency is just not done here.
One other major problem is the complacency of English teachers as a group. An valliant attempt was made to form a legal action group for foreign teachers through EFL-Law.com and its founders but it failed miserably due to ‘lack of interest.’ (read: everybody wanted it for free instead of paying a membership fee). The result is the forum that I linked (which is actually a transfer from the original EFL-Law.com or .org that was shut down) is now the best source (maybe the only) of information for foriegn teachers looking for job and legal advice.
Pro bono work is done here in Korea by Korean lawyers and by me myself. It’s just that I get to choose what I take on for free. And there is an element of whether or not the lawyer can afford to take a given matter — sometimes the timing is just wrong and the lawyer needs to concentrate more on making sure he has enough money to pay the rent.
Contingency is surely done here too. But contingency practice depends on the availability of a quantum of damages which allows for the plaintiff to recover enough to compensate the lawyer both for the work and for the risk of not prevailing. And Korean damage awards in personal matters are really crummy. Twenty-five percent of (a probably uncollectible award of) W2,000,000 — if we win, and are so lucky as to be able to collect the award — is not enticing enough to motivate any lawyer to get out of bed.
My partner Doil is handling a contingent-fee case which he’s probably going to lose. But if he wins, the fee will be W4,000,000,000 (US$4.4 million) because the property being fought over is valuable.
As I always say in these circumstances, a lawyer can work and not get paid, or not work and not get paid. As for me, unless the case is really compelling and I can afford to take it at that moment, I think I’ll sleep in or catch up on some reading. And I’d bet that’s why you don’t see a contingency-based plaintiff’s bar here.
“I recommend that the English teachers in Korea make more effort to teaching and less effort to drinking, drugs, kiddy fiddling, and being fat so they don’t need to be worrying about being on this list.”
…and trolls should stay under their bridge.
#14
“Foreigners have the same rights as a Korean (excepting the visa issue), and if you go to court you’ll get the same shake — in almost all cases (there are some bigots to be found even on the bench) — as a Korean”
HA, HA, HA!!! More like foreigners will receive an unfair shake in almost all cases. What Planet Do You Live on?
Why do you use the word ‘foreigners?’ You should practice what you preach!
Hey, dude, when in Rome. Except for maybe the fat part.
Hey, ZenKimchi took his hagwon owner to court and won. Why not you?
OK, instead of “foreigners” how about the name “international residents.” A nicer ring than “non-Koreans” or “immigrants.”
Yeah I am not buying the foreigners have the same rights in the legal system here either. It may be better than before but everyone knows this society will bribe, cheat, lie to do whatever it takes and being the foreigner you will always be seen as the outsider.
Korea thinks it’s homogeneous (never was) but this is deeply rooted and will play into right vs wrong Korean vs foreigner.
Yeah ZenKimchi may have won but how many lost? Using that one case as an example is not a true representation of reality.
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Have you been blacklisted in Korea?…
Copied in full from View from the Fence. See also the Marmots hole for other comments. There has been a discussion recently on the Koreabridge Korea Job Advice Forums about a blacklist that has been posted by the Korean Foreign Teacher Recruiting Assoc…
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