Employment & Professional Development

Within days of my arriving at my university a FAO staff member said he’d call me over in a few days to sign the contract. Seven months later I’m still waiting for that call.

It transpires that none of the several foreign teachers have signed a contract with our employer. We do get paid, and our hours are not excessive, but we don’t receive any bonuses, and only get a one-way annual travel allowance.

No one is particularly put out by the lack of a contract. Do you think we should be?

Contracts in China primarily protect the employers, not the foreign employees. At best, they serve as a foundation for future, often impromptu, negotiations. Nevertheless, they are required by the PSB for the purpose of obtaining your Z-visa and residency permit.

I don't know how the university would have been able to obtain your Z-visa and residency permit without a signed official SAFEA contract.

If all of the foreign teachers are working at this university on tourist or business visas, then that would concern me very much as not only are you working illegally but you are essentially being employed on a month-to-month basis.

This is the first time I have read or heard about foreign teachers working for a university without a written contract of any kind.

We all have bona fide residence permits, not tourist or business visas. Unless our signatures have been forged, the PSB staff will not have received copies of contracts signed by us.
What do think is going on?

I consulted with our "visa expert" Ken Hayes and this was his take on your situation:

Ken Hayes wrote:

1. The FAO simply signed their names on contracts to expedite the process, calculating he'd save time since the foreigners didn't need to know about or be involved in the process.

2. The University is not licensed to hire foreigners. This would be unusual, inasmuch as legitimate universities are slam dunk assured they'll get a license. But, without knowing the history of the university, that is hard to determine.

The question is whether or not they have foreign expert certificates (FEC). They may not have been hired as "Foreign Experts" but "hired" as chemical engineers or the like via the Labor Bureau with the help of a company that has the ability to hire foreigners.

If they have FECs, then the school is probably legit, but should have issued them contract copies.

If the school is not legit, they could have used any number of ways to get the foreign residency permits.

If you have a foreign residency permit without having been given a signed contract, something isn't kosher. That much is for sure.

It's something you should be concerned about as a legal matter but, obviously, as a practical matter, all of you seem to think that there are no problems.