The question, as I'd like to ask it, is this: Why is teaching English illegal? For E-2 visa holders, teaching private lessons (or anywhere other than your sponsoring school) is illegal and theoretically punishable by a fine. Why has the act of teaching been made illegal? It's the very same reason tens of thousands of foreigners come to Korea; the same reason we choose to move halfway across the world.
Perhaps foreigners are guilty of the same thing many Koreans are: seeking out that edge to make our lives better. Is that truly a reason worth punishing them? As an E-2 visa holder, your first and foremost responsibility is to the school that hired you, flown you halfway around the world, and is providing you a place to live. At the same time, it is one's constitutional right to ``pursue happiness" (Article 10); it is also one's ``right" and ``duty" to work (Article 32).
My modest proposal is this: A citizen living in Korea on an E-2 visa shall have the right to work any job they desire, so long as:
I won't give away the ending.
I'm not a big fan of the restriction on E-2 visa holders, and think that visa portability, or even the less-drastic suggestions Chris made, would benefit the foreign teachers holding these visas and the industry as a whole by making it harder for shitty schools to keep foreigners locked into year-long contracts. According to quite a few teachers, the issue of visa portability should have been the first thing ATEK went after when they launched, rather than coming out swinging at drug tests and background checks.
But the question Chris'd have to ask next is: what reason is there for the system to accommodate E-2 visa holders? Or, more specifically: what reason is there for the system to accommodate English teachers on E-2 visas? Don't forget the E-2 visa is for foreign teachers of foreign languages, not simply English teachers. My fiancee was on an E-2 as well, though she didn't have to jump through nearly as many legal and bureaucratic hoops as I did. Chris's suggestions make sense to me, but remember that English teachers have been subject to more, not less, legislation and restrictions over the past couple years, and I'm not sure how you'd reverse the trend.
18 comments:
First of all it isn't illegal for E2 visa holders to get a second job. You just have to get permission from your school and then permission from immigration. It is a hassle but phrasing it as illegal is misleading. The cost to get the stamp on one's Visa costs about 60,000 won if somebody working at a school wanted to pick up another part time job.
Secondly private lessons are illegal for Koreans as well if they don't report to the local school board and don't pay taxes on the income that they earn.
A lot of work restrictions on E2 visa holders have to do with tax issues that would be the same in any other country. If a Korean were to go to America, for example, teach Korean and not pay taxes on the income then they would be violating American tax laws.
There are a host of other issues that E2 visa holders have to face, but saying that it is illegal to work two jobs is a little misleading. A person can work at a public school and then moonlight at a hagwon as long as they report it to immigration with permission from their principal. Perhaps if the permission from the principal clause were deleted it would make things easier in the case that the NET tries a second job, but it isn't impossible or illegal if you fill out the proper paperwork.
@Brian: Working on a more extensive reply than is appropriate for a comment - will post a link when it's finished :)
@3gyupsal: in my original article, I mentioned that second jobs were fine IF you got permission from the employer and you did the Immi thing as well. Reality, though, is that few employers give that sort of permission without some darned good reason. If someone out there has gotten specific permission and legitimized it with Immi, I'd love to hear about it - I've only heard perhaps two stories of decent veracity in almost two years here...
@Chris
I tried to read the original article that you wrote, but was having some problems with viewing the pages, so I might have skimmed over those sections, and I apologize for misrepresenting your article.
I learned about the visa loop holes while working for a university a few years ago. They farmed me out to a girls middle school when I was on a tourist visa (which was illegal whichever way you look at it.) And then they farmed me out to a government worker training facility without the proper permission from immigration. I'm sure that they would have been happy to do it right in the first place since they were profiting greatly off of the work that I did. (The girls middle school paid 80,000 won to the university, while I got 30,000 won. I told the head teacher at the girls middle school who was sympathetic to me and canceled the contract with the University.
Now, I am working at a middle school that is starting a night class for students. The school is hiring a second NET for the night school, that will be 4 nights a week. (I was somewhat upset that they didn't ask me to do, I decided that working 4 nights a week for night school classes would be hell so I'm actually somewhat thankful to the poor person who has to do that.) The NET night school teacher is a teacher at an elementary school, who seems to have gotten permission from her employer.
I think that it is easy to get permission from employers if you have a good relationship with them. If you work in a public school, be sure to greet your principal when you see him or her, and maybe even take them out to lunch some time. The principal of my school owns a bonzai farm, and seemed absolutely delighted when I asked him if I could buy a bonzai tree from him as a Christmas tree, stuff like that really helps.
This has been asked and answered repeatedly, if you can locate it somewhere among the din of the K-blogs.
Private tutoring is discouraged — not just for native anglophones teaching English — because it is considered to run counter to egalitarian ideals that have been at the heart of many policies for decades (though, obviously, without complete success).
Second, his proposals fail to go to the heart of the problem for visa sponsorship, which is, well, someone sponsoring you and providing "insurance" for you. Solve the 신원보증, and you've gotten half way.
@ Chris,
I work for a public school and have had permission to work for my district teaching teachers and for a public high school outside of my district teaching psychology. However, both were still within the public system.
So, while I needed permission like a good little SLAVE, I didn't have to go through immigration because I technically am working for the same employer for all three jobs.
I think what he proposes seems reasonable. While I'm no longer on an E-2 visa, it would have been nice to be able to seek out additional work. While it is possible to go through the legal channels, I worked at an institute that was notorious for turning teachers down who asked, without really caring what their reason was. (They paid on an hourly basis, not a monthly salary.) We were basically told by senior teachers to not even try because so far, no one had been granted permission, which left a large number to pursue private lessons if they wanted or needed extra money.
Now I'm on an E-7 visa, and it has the same kind of regulations (as far as I know, no one really seems to know enough to explain it to me in detail, even immigration) but the employers seem to be much more agreeable to allowing you to part-time somewhere else if your hours allow. Since most of my work now is freelance based, it's a nice improvement.
Emma, as far as I'm aware, you are not able do outside work on an E7. You don't even have the option of getting two "second job permission" jobs.
If guys like Chris had actually had lived anywhere outside the US and South Korea, he'd have realized that freelancing for side work on an employer-specific visa is largely forbidden in every country within the European Union and DEFINITELY within the United States.
I just love blogs of Americans who go from the US to S. Korea and now assume they're somehow wise, constructively critical geniuses of entire legal systems when they really don't know jack about the world at large.
Ah, I was unaware of this. Now I feel a bit foolish. ^^; I was fed some misinformation, it appears.
Though, I should have expected as much. None of the other E-7 holders that I've talked to about these sort of things seems to really know what we can and can't do, since our companies don't really tell us and we can't seem to find the right information online or from immigration. And it seemed as though my boss was genuinely surprised that I didn't have any other part-time jobs outside of our company. I guess that's why I assumed it was okay.
Sorry for my misinformation!! But I really do hope they make some positive changes to the E-2! ^_^
midnight said, "freelancing for side work on an employer-specific visa is largely forbidden in every country within the European Union and DEFINITELY within the United States."
Not exactly. I work on an E2 visa here in South Korea; however, I currently do more than 50 hours a week of freelance work back in the U.S. and U.K. Luckily, both offices in L.A. and London are for the same U.S.-based company and they are taking care of my taxes.
While you may not be able to have more than one job in the country that granted your work visa, that does not mean that you can no do work back home or in other countries. Nowadays, it's easier than ever before thanks to the internet. What sucks is that I am considered a consultant and not given the same benefits as those who are actually present daily in the office, but the commute is roll out of bed easy.
Nah, midknight's just being an asshole. He found my blog today and has been commenting on a bunch of the articles. Like a lot of angry readers who find my site, he lets his contempt of foreigners and English teachers in Korea to interfere with his valid points.
Actually, my contempt lies only for white male American English teachers in S. Korea who harbor latent feelings of white superiority which clash with their own sense of personal insecurity and inadequacy.
If this does not apply to you, then you need not worry.
From Chris in South Korea:
My response clocks in at over 1,400 words (including a couple paragraphs quoted from this post) - please read at http://chrisinsouthkorea.blogspot.com/2010/03/re-modest-proposal-on-visas.html
It goes without saying that there's plenty more to be said on the subject. I don't plan to writing much more about it, unless I'm given an opportunity towards some actual change. Writing a blog is fun and all, but offering suggestions and proposals about subjects such as these is a bit like talking to a brick wall at times. The people that CAN bring change aren't reading a humble blog such as my own; as such, I'd prefer to focus my energies on things worth the time and energy.
If anyone cares, I elaborated a bit more on the aforementioned egalitarianism ideal and 신원보증 and why they are the primary factors preventing visa portability here.
It would help if Immigration itself knew firmly what the rules were and were not . . . I've had way, way too many run-arounds with them, trying to figure out what is and is not legal on my visa and getting different answers every time I ask. I've been told that on my visa I can get a second job added if my employer agrees, that I can't add a second job at all, and that I can only add it if I work in the sciences (!?!). Heck, when I was invited to work and study at a research institute at a major university, I couldn't get a straight answer even when I walked into immigration to ask directly what visa I needed and how to get it. They literally didn't know, except that I wasn't allowed the supposed visa for researchers, because I wasn't in a hard science. That's right - research institute and research work does not equal a research visa. Oy vey. What answer you get to your specific question depends entirely on who you ask, how they feel about you and the world in that instant, and whether they've had their morning coffee.
Is there such a thing as an employer specific visa in other countries?
Don't you just get a work visa and...well...work? Obviously your employer is obligated by law to report any income both he and you make.
I'm not sure but I guess this employer specific visa thing is only in Korea.
In my visa the heart of the issue is not having to report taxes but having to ask "permission". If it's a visa issue I can understand asking immigration but why ask your current employer??? Seems like Koreans enjoy keeping a lid on their fair skinned pets.
oh and midnight...LIGHTEN UP!
lifer11 wrote:
Is there such a thing as an employer specific visa in other countries?
Don't you just get a work visa and...well...work? Obviously your employer is obligated by law to report any income both he and you make.
I'm not sure but I guess this employer specific visa thing is only in Korea.
I was revisiting this issue for something academic and I ran across lifer11's months-old question.
I think you may be confusing temporary work visas with permanent residence status. In the US and Canada, there are temporary work visas which are location-specific and, according to some researchers, rife with abuse by employers (no surprise). I believe that it's an H-series visa in the US (for foreign professors on down). Several of my professors at my uni in Hawaii have H-series visas; one told me she had to turn down an honorarium for a speaking engagement because it would have violated her visa. She's working on getting a green card, for which she is (relatively) fast-tracked because she's a professor with a continuing contract.
An E-series visa is a temporary work visa allowing temporary but renewable residency. It is not permanent immigration status. Were they the same, E-series visas would take years, not weeks, to get.
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