This is my experience as a teacher for thirty five years in many different countries and contexts.
Most teachers are cowards.
For thirty years as a teacher I have watched teachers hide, run and ultimately serve themselves as their colleagues are eliminated by poor or corrupt managers.
People in Australia these days are so afraid of losing their contracts.
Why?
A lifetime of contracting overseas as a teacher has taught me one thing-if nothing else--that the contract is not worth the paper it is written on. No matter where it is, from the UK to Australia, from South America to the Middle-East and from Africa to Asia -the contract has meant meant almost nothing to the two signatories!
Well, are you going to sue the Sultan of Brunei or the Sheik of the United Arab Emirates? No.
Are you in a position to sue anyone overseas? No!
Is it worth while suing your boss in Australia or the UK? of course not -do you have the money for legal aid? Do you want to get all the dirty jobs to do? or be blacklisted by the bosses friends in the 'industry' ? Of course not!
I am 58, and I have come to the conclusion that I don't want a contract as a language teacher in Australia. A contract is a trap designed to force me do what someone else in the company wants me to do.
I want my freedom and will remain as a casual employee.
That way, my employer has to be reasonable. If he or she isn't -then I will walk away.
In the old days the union would have ensured the employer behaved-but the unions have been broken by the employers, by the selfishness of Union officials and of union members. The Unions are now are now weak.
So now, after a war of attrition for about forty years, employers and their stooges in mangaement have what they want -a more-or- less powerless employee to exploit and manipulate at will.
There is a way out of this depressing mess for the employee. But you have to pay for it. There is a way out.
Only the wealthy really seek contracts-because the job isn't really essential to their survival. The wealthy teacher deludes him/herself that they actually need a contract when , in fact, they don't need it -they just want it.
You don't need a contract-all you have to do is be prepared to give up something. But there is the rub!
The teacher who is comfortably off is never prepared to do that. He/she is addicted to their own material comforts.
So,the teacher who is comfortably-off is a problem. He/she is invariably a coward who, when push comes to shove, will hang his/her colleagues out to dry.
I don't care if I have no house, less money, no holidays , no sick leave. I am prepared to give all that away. I don't need a house -I can rent one.
Nobody is going to hang a mortgage around my neck and imprison me.
When I am casual the bosses have to be pleasant and reasonable to me or I will leave and work somewhere else -or not at all.
If I sign a contract my bosses will eventually exploit me -and my colleagues will just sit and watch and do nothing as I am crushed in front of their eyes.
That has been my experience , anyway.
I find this new freedom quite liberating. I am a free agent at last. I no longer care what the boss thinks -or who his/her 'pet' on the staff currently is or indeed, what such people think of me.
People talk about working FOR someone. I now want to satisfy myself first-and only then other people. I feel much freer at last .
What do I get out of all this?
Self-respect.
Cheap at twice the price!
I wonder have other people had the same experience in the workplace?
mind you -if there is no work what happens?
Retirement, Kota Kinabalu
This is where I would like to be after I have robbed the bank
Winners and Losers
Debate 2008 Winners and Losers Editor at left.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Hi Don,
ReplyDeleteI'm with you on this.
I was a contract newbie when I went to Brunei and I paid the price. I didn't understand that it was written in terms loose enough to allow the employer to make me do anything it wished - and any amount of it - for the quite ordinary salary specified.
I also wish I had had your advice about the true relationship between wealth and private contracts before deciding to go to Brunei. It was clear that the more successful expats there were those already in a good financial position; taking up these contracts was a sort of pastime for them in the later stage of their careers. A Brunei-type adventure doesn't suit people who are starting from a small financial base. The set-up and settling-in costs are very high relative to the capital they bring with them and so the losses incurred when things go sour are proportionally much greater.
The casual teaching life is everything but secure, though it suits me at the moment. There are far worse things than to have a job that might disappear tomorrow - particularly if it isn't a very well-paid one.
Yes,
ReplyDeleteThanks for that.
You express it much more concisely than I do.
I just write from the heart-I can't be bothhered waiting for my head -life is too short tow wait for my head. There is always something else to complain about!