South African teacher wins case after contract termination in South Korea

The South Korean ministry of employment and labour (Moel) has ordered that country's private school owner to settle outstanding payments owed to a South African teacher, warning failure to comply will result in criminal proceedings.

The Moel conducted an investigation into the owner and the employee. The owner was ordered to pay the teacher's unpaid wages.

Megan Dube, who teaches English, was fired by the school director at a private kindergarten in Asan, South Korea, where she worked for a month. She shared her experience with TimesLIVE, detailing her ordeal after a cultural clash with the kindergarten owner.

“The issue started when I asked for my contract at the beginning of teacher training. She didn't like being confronted in front of people, but it had been almost four weeks requesting a copy of my contract and each time she refused to give it to me,” she said.

Though she offered to print a copy from her work laptop, the owner refused and wanted her to work on a government protected public holiday (known as a red day) with no pay.

“When I got to work the next day, I was issued a termination of contract. I asked the reason I was being dismissed. In the letter she wrote that she fired me for being rude.”

Dube said the owner has a history of purposely hiring South Africans only to exploit them.

“She was biased because most of the teachers she mistreated were black female South Africans. She didn't like me from the first week of training and looked for ways to exploit me.”

Dube said she approached the teachers' union but felt they were slow to address her issue. She took matters into her own hands, waiting 14 days before filing a complaint with the Moel over unpaid wages, bypassing union assistance.

The teachers' union kept asking that she wait for them to hear back from an attorney from the workers' rights centre because they had not worked with the school before.

“I waited for at least three weeks and I feel filing on one's own would be more efficient than filing through the union as the union doesn't handle individual cases and also cannot provide translators and lawyers for their members.

“I am hopeful I will get paid — but it's not guaranteed as two other ex-employees have also filed cases for unpaid wages against the same director.”

TimesLIVE