I have a small problem, for which I'm seeking any information possible on what i can do.
I have just finished a 9month fixed contract with my employer, i was employed by them.
They are supposed top have paid me in surplus of 2000zl 2 weeks ago (which was my last day of employment) since then i have received nothing, they refuse to answer the phone, and so Ive been visiting for the last two days asking, normally the response is
We have no money, we cant afford to pay you, we are waiting for xxx to pay us, we made a mistake with our accounting this month etc etc etc
Today i went and the receptionist gave me 100zl, which is all they had, she showed me the balance sheet and they had 10zl left, when i told her how much they owed me, she laughed and said humm sure, baring in mind she is also waiting to be paid!
Just a full time teaching contract... I'm not self employed or anything, they make my zuz and tax contributions (well hopefully, problem getting hold of the copies)
I have feeling it was a TEFL job and the unscrupulous employer banks that he will sail back to jolly England for the summer, and not come back.
Well they were more annoyed i didn't want to extend my contract with them for next year!
Words can,t describe what I would like to do to an employer like that. Hire a hitman to blow his balls off. Put all their personal details on here, the grapevine works pretty well. ( eg ) name and address, the governors name.......
you know, people suck... you work for somebody, and then you have to beg them to pay you for your hard work...
I wouldn't ever beg for what's rightfully mine. I would take the matter to court as soon as possible. I wouldn't even wait. When I don't pay people right on time, they do the same to me, right?
I doubt they do :( Have you a records of tax and zuz payments that have been signed by the school director?
I had similar situation, when most of the teachers in the school weren't paid. I had to blackmail them just to get the money I was owed. Delph should be able to help you out.
It really annoys me that they are still so many schools that continue to work in this way. Hopefully they will all die out soon, fingers crossed anyway.
I would take the matter to court as soon as possible.
I empathise! Be careful, though. If you do that, and your Polish isn't totally fluent, you'll have to legally hire a court interpreter. Guess how much that'll cost? I suggest you do something in their stupid office that, on the one hand, isn't serious enough to sue you, but annoying enough for them to send you a solicitor's letter. You can then reply to their solicitor in English, claiming your Polish isn't good enough (which is probably true), and that you demand a reply in fluent English for it to be legal. Write to their solicitors IN REPLY as many letters as possible by registered post, really dragging out each point in each letter and making it as long-winded as possible. Interpreters charge per word. It doesn't matter if the solicitor is an Oxford graduate; for his letters to be legally valid, they MUST bear the stamp of an official interpreter. That way those b*s*rds will have to pay through the nose. Oh and include some really long texts from "your Sri Lankan advisor", a long, long text in some obscure alphabet such as Sinhala. Additional, higher interpreter costs! Don't hire your own dollar-eyed solicitor, as you can't afford it. You haven't been paid. Good luck with those Catholics.
Absolutely awful advice you've given there - whether or not you're serious, the point is that you're unlikely to get anywhere whatsoever with such an approach. In fact, all you'd do is succeed in them refusing to pay up - and I can't imagine any court in Poland finding such an approach to be reasonable.
Sod the system, they always look after their own. Sling the dirt man and find some good mercenaries to knee cap the b*****ds. SERIOUSLY, the best deal is to give them bad publicity. Forget what,s owed to you, you ain,t gonna see it.
The Hitman is right. You need to do the dirty on them and give them awful publicity. Spread the word, let everyone know about it. They dug their own hole.
Even sneaky emails to your former students explaining where their hard earn cash has gone :P
I threatened one school that I would take their students with me when I moved to a new school, all because they wouldn't pay up the last of my wages. It worked a treat :)
You need to do the dirty on them and give them awful publicity. Spread the word, let everyone know about it.
School owners tend not to care too much about a former teacher saying bad things about them: they are Poles and they know that Poles will always take the side of other Poles when there is a dispute with a foreigner. However, they do live in fear of the tax office: threatening to report schools to the tax office (and to ZUS) has never failed to extract money owed to me by former employers. The trick is to make it sound as if you aren't actually threatening them but still make them understand that you can drop them into a world of hurt with people who can put them in prison.
Absolutely right, Harry! This has been my experience to date. Bad publicity does sting them, though. It just depends what channels you use and how you go about it. After all, they spend (and waste) so much money on advertising with those leafets/flyers of theirs.
Today i went and the receptionist gave me 100zl, which is all they had, she showed me the balance sheet and they had 10zl left, when i told her how much they owed me, she laughed and said humm sure, baring in mind she is also waiting to be paid!
Don't sue them as it's an arduous and protracted process that you will likely lose. This is not litigation capital like America. ADR//out-of-court settlements are often the better option.
Trust me, it doesn't make much of a difference to most employers here. They are not going to cough up and what may seem obvious to us is by no means obvious to Polish authorities. He could try the small claims procedure as Poland has sth akin to that. However, you probably spend as much raising the action as you'll get back. Rather ironically, it doesn't pay ;)
They are not going to cough up and what may seem obvious to us is by no means obvious to Polish authorities. He could try the small claims procedure as Poland has sth akin to that. However, you probably spend as much raising the action as you'll get back.
Of course, when your friend (me) has a pet lawyer who is going to deal with it, things become much easier. :)
Part of the problem is that foreigners just aren't brutal enough towards employers.
