Well I have made a decision and I have decided to leave MRA at the end of June. To be honest, when Morgan offered me the free pass, I was not sure if I wanted to take him up on it. I battled back and forth with myself trying to decide whether or not it would get any better, or whether I would be able to just suck it up for another year. If it was just a question about leaving the school, it really wasn’t even a question, but it also put into question the possibility of leaving China and going back to the US jobless – and that I am not prepared for.
Most days I am content here… not ecstatically happy, but not crying either. I enjoy my time with my kids and avoid most interactions with Morgan. I do my job to the best of my ability but I still spend a good majority of my time at school defending myself to co-workers or to Morgan and to be honest it is just a bit obnoxious. The teacher that I was having the most problems with (Ms. Huang) was fired this week, but coincidentally not for hitting kids. She was fired for not showing up for work. I have moved past my dislike for the curriculum and I have accepted that it is just cultural, and thankfully the abuse against the kids has pretty much stopped since Morgan’s return from the US. All of these things aside, I pretty much made up my mind when I found out that I am working for MRA illegally.
To fully explain this, I have to start at the beginning... back when I arrived in January, I had to jump through hoops to get my residential permit and work visa. I had to get medical check-ups, shots and test, fill out a ton of paperwork and sign several different contracts in both Chinese and English – naturally, I was very cautious about signing anything in Chinese before I read the English version. I thought I was being careful, but in hindsight, I was really naïve (then again, it is not my fault that I was taken advantage of). Amongst the contracts that I signed was one for the Rainbow Agency (or something like that). While I was reading it, I recall Ms. Shi telling me, “Don’t worry about this one, it is not really your contract.”
You see, according to Chinese law, a foreign expat cannot own a business without a Chinese business partner. Since Morgan is Taiwanese, we were told that the contract was for the agency of his Chinese business partner, and that we needed that contract in order to get our work visa. So I signed it and moved on to the next stack of paperwork. I asked for copies of everything that I signed, and although I was told that I could get the copies, I have yet to see any of them. Another bit of information, upon my arrival, I did not have the physical copies of my college diploma, transcript or teaching certificates. I had just graduated and they had not arrived in the mail before I left for China. I was told that it was not a problem, but that I needed to provide him with copies as soon as I received everything.
Ok, now let me fast forward to now… Courtney H wants to break her contract a couple months early because she has found another job in Shanghai. Morgan has really been giving her a hard time about it and keeps telling her that if she breaks the contract that she is going to be placed on a “black list” that will keep her from working in China in the future. We began doing a lot of research about the logistics of working in China, the legality of the contract and the, so called “black list” and what we discovered was absolutely absurd. So let me try and break it down into the many ways in which Morgan is running a scam of a school.
1. Five years ago, Morgan bought out a small school called Omega from a Chinese company. Because he is Taiwanese and cannot own his own business, on paper, MRA does not exist and Morgan is not the owner of the school, but the Chinese company still owns the school called Omega.
2. There are only two forms of schools that have a special permit to be able to hire foreign teachers legally through the Educational Bureau – International schools and Language Institutes. International schools are very specific in which all students must have a foreign passport to be admitted, and local Chinese students are not accepted into the schools. Language Institutes are specific to teaching foreign language and culture, and again, they are very explicit about who they are allowed to accept into their school. MRA is neither of these – it is a privately owned preschool program that accepts both local Chinese and foreign children – therefore, he cannot legally hire foreign teachers. Which brings me to my next discovery…
3. Remember the Rainbow Agency? We thought it was the Chinese business partner that allowed Morgan to own a business. Turns out the Rainbow Agency is a Language Institute and the owner is a friend of Morgan. Because they are a governmentally recognized Language Institute they are allowed to hire foreign teachers, so Morgan pays them to clam us as employees so that we can get a work visa and work at his school illegally! To parents, he can claim his school is an “International Preschool” because he has foreign teachers and charge them the “International fees” but in all honesty, it is a crock!
Now the unfortunate part about all of this is that we do not have any proof. Although we signed the contracts, we were not given the copies that we were promised. Recently when we asked Morgan to see our personal files and asked for all of the copies of our contracts again, he told us that he did not have any of the copies because they were all at the Agency and the Bureau (pretty strange), but he assured us that he would ask the “Agency” to send us copies. The next day, he said that we were not going to get copies because the “Agency” sent them all to the Bureau and they no longer have copies of anything. Interesting that neither of my places of employment would have any copies of the legal contracts and documents we signed for me to work in a foreign country. The “Agency” also advised Morgan to not give us any copies of anything because we were “asking too many questions” and they thought that we were “plotting against them” (direct quote from Morgan).
4. Remember how I told you that I did not have all of my educational documentation in the beginning because it had not arrived yet? Well I have received my Diploma and my transcript, but I am still waiting on my certificates to arrive. Morgan has not mentioned anything, so I assumed that it was not a huge deal that it was taking a while. All of the sudden, after Courtney and I had asked about our contracts, Morgan starts hounding me about my certificates. Of course I cannot make them arrive any quicker, but I assured him that as soon as I received them, he would have a copy on his desk. He told me that without the certificates I can be deported because all my documentation is illegal. In fact, he did need all of the documentation in the beginning in order to get my work visa. However, since it had not arrived yet, but he knew I was legit, he forged all of my documents to get my visa. Now at any time, he says the Work Bureau could walk into the school and request all of the documentation for his employees and since mine was forged, I would be deported and he would go to jail and he is having a hard time sleeping because he has these forged documents on his conscious (he says). Although if you ask me, if the Work Bureau came to his school, my documentation would be the least of his worries…
5. (Yes, there is still more!) Around the same time that we asked him about our contracts and such, I was asking him about tax information. Each month we get paid in cash, and our income is tracked on a handwritten table that he fills out each month. He gave us the tax information at the beginning of the year that said if we make X amount of RMB to Y amount of RMB that we would be taxed Z amount each month. So each month, he takes Z amount of RMB out of our monthly salary. The problem is that if I work in a foreign country, I am only allowed 35 days in the US within a consecutive 12 month working period otherwise I could be double taxed on my income. Since I will be spending at least 2 month in the US, there is a tax form that I can fill out to prove that I have paid taxes in the foreign country that would exempt me from also paying taxes in the US. So I was asked Morgan about the documentation that he would be able to provide me with when I go back to the US to prove that I have been paying taxes. He told me that no such document exists, but not to worry because no other past teachers have ever had a problem.
In fact, there is a document that exists. Morgan must have an accountant for his business (well at least according to Chinese law), and documentation should be provided monthly and annually to prove income and taxes. Then again, since we are not legally employed under MRA, Morgan does not have to give us anything which is why I have drawn a conclusion. That “fake” contract that we signed most likely has a different rate of pay which indicates that we would have to pay less taxes, but since Morgan is paying us more, he is taxing us more and most likely pocketing the excess RMB. Therefore, he is going to be extremely reluctant to handover that paperwork, which in the long run would end up screwing me over.
6. Now this is the part that I am not exactly sure about… according to the Chinese government, we are not working in China as teachers. I know that it has something to do with the whole MRA not really existing to the Educational Bureau and everything, but I am only recognized as working in China through the Labor Department. Now that I have begun looking for other jobs, schools in China (real schools) do not recognize my time at MRA as being professional work experience as a teacher. Now I am sure that this will not make a difference once I start looking for jobs in the US, but for now, it is making things very difficult in China.
Now for the BLACK LIST... Morgan has told us that Drew is on the “black list” and he has threatened to put Courtney on the “black list” if she terminates her contract prematurely. To be honest, it is only rumored to an actually “black list” exists, but Morgan can stop her from getting another job in China if he desires. Because we are foreign expats working on a temporary work visa, each visa needs to be “released” before another visa can be issued. In order for Courtney to take her new job, her new school needs the release from her old school to process the paperwork for a new visa. The employer is only required to give the release if the employee completes a given contract or if he or she is terminated at the will of the employer. However, if the employee chooses to break the contract early, the employer is not required to give the release and it would stop her from getting another job in China.
Thankfully, Courtney and Morgan have come up with some kind of an agreement… she is breaking her contract early but he is still going to give her the release, but that it Courtney’s drama and I am trying to stay out of it!
So anyway, there it is... Lesson learned.
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