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Everything You Need to Know About Teaching Contracts in China

Contractual agreements do not have the same weight or meaning in China as they do in the West. Whereas contracts are viewed as static and binding agreements in the West, in China, they are typically treated as a starting point for ongoing, often impromptu, negotiations and amendments. This should not be interpreted to mean that one’s contract is unimportant or inconsequential: To the contrary, the contract should be taken seriously precisely because it often serves as the starting point for future negotiations, as well as the basis for resolving, if not preempting, potential disputes or your employer’s attempts at last minute changes.

SAFEA Contracts

If you are working legally in China, you will normally sign two contracts. One contract is the SAFEA contract and the other contract is an addendum (modification) to the SAFEA contract.

SAFEA contracts come in numbered sets of two. On the upper right-hand corner you will notice a red and unique identification number (usually seven digits). The contract is in Chinese and English. You will sign two SAFEA contracts with the same number. One is for the school and one is your copy. The contracts are identical except one copy has the English translation presented first in the contract (this is the one usually given to the foreigner, but it makes no difference).

The local governmental officials usually keep tight control of these contracts. If you are asked to sign a contract that is not authentic (does not have a red number on the right upper corner and is not on premium bond paper bound into a booklet) then you are not signing a legal contract.

The addendum to the contract is printed on normal office paper and is used to record modifications to the SAFEA contract. This addendum has equal weight to the SAFEA contract and must have the SAFEA contract numbers written on it to legally bind them together. Altogether, you will typically sign four documents: two copies of the SAFEA contract and two copies of the addendum. You will keep one copy of each. Some schools will attempt to present you with only the SAFEA contract and no addendum. Unless you are perfectly happy with the standalone SAFEA contract, do not accept this arrangement.

A school’s FAO or Western representative may tell you “We cannot modify the contract because it is a standard instrument issued by the government.” This is only partially true. Although the SAFEA contact itself cannot be modified, the terms of the contract can be modified by the addendum, which becomes a binding and integral part of the employment agreement.

What Should the Addendum Contain?

The SAFEA contract is an extremely terse official document that does little more than specify the names of the parties, the period of service, the base salary, the standard breach penalty, and very broad terms for making revisions to the contract, as well as who to contact for arbitration. The bulk of what we would consider to be “the contract” is contained primarily in the addendum.

At a bare minimum, here is what the addendum should contain and what you should be looking for:

• Maximum number of classes, teaching periods or hours per week. The addendum should specifically state how many hours per week you are expected to engage in face-to-face teaching.
• Rate of pay for overtime and whether overtime is mandatory or voluntary.
• Probationary period. Some schools will stipulate a probationary period that essentially allows them to terminate you if you are not what they thought you were or need you to be. This period should not be longer than six months (typically the first semester at a university).
• Payment Schedule. Salaries are paid on a monthly basis only in China. The addendum should indicate on what day of the following month you will be paid, e.g., “before or on the 5th day of the following month.”
• Income tax responsibility. Check the addendum to see who is responsible for paying the incomes taxes assuming your salary is greater than 4800 RMB per month, i.e., is your salary inclusive or exclusive of taxes? Some schools will automatically deduct the taxes for you while others leave it to you to pay your own taxes.
• Accommodations. The more vague or general this is, the more it can potentially work against you. At the very least, the addendum should specify that you will be provided with a kitchen, facilities for cooking, air conditioning and heat, basic furniture, a television set, a water cooler for drinking water, and bedding. Some schools will provide utilities, such as a phone line and a low-speed Internet connection, others will not and a few will specify a utility allowance up to a limited amount every month, e.g., 200 yuan.
• Paid Vacation. The addendum should specify how many days per year you will be given off with salary.
• Days off per week or work days. Specifically check for how many days off per week you will have or, in the alternative, what constitutes a work week. For example, the addendum should specify “teacher will work five days per week,” “the foreign expert will teach from Wednesday through Sunday,” or “teacher will have two days off per week.” If there is no mention of this, it potentially means that you could be called into service seven days per week if need be—and this is a situation you most definitely want to avoid. Finally, read the addendum carefully to ascertain whether your days off will be contiguous or not.
• Sick Leave. There is an awful amount of variability in regard to sick leave. Many private schools will automatically dock a foreign teacher’s salary by 1/30th of his monthly salary for each day that is missed due to illness. Most public schools and universities will usually allow up to two days per semester without penalty, but this is something you should check carefully. In one unusual instance we know of, a public university stipulated in its addendum that it would pay the foreign teacher at the full rate of pay for up to 30 continous sick days with a doctor’s note and at 50% of the salary for everyday thereafter (assuming it didn’t decide to terminate the teacher after 30 days, which it also mentioned as an option).
• Prep work, homework, testing, time for grading papers, etc. Check your addendum carefuly for stipulations regarding what is expected of you in these areas. As a rule, teaches are expected to invest whatever time they need to prepare for classes and grade homework (if required) without additional compensation. However, the presence of “office hours” in your addendum should serve as a big red flag (see unit 19d: Office Hours and Other Free Work).
• Accidental Injury or Medical Insurance. Most SAFEA approved schools will provide accidental injury insurance only as this is what is legally required by the government. However, many universities, especially those with medical schools that enjoy adjoining hospitals, will extend real medical benefits to their teachers as well. If your school only provides accidental injury insurance, you might want to consider supplementing it with plans specifically designed for foreign teachers (see unit 4c: Travel and Medical Benefits).

Contract Nullification Clauses

When reviewing the addendum, especially those provided to you by private English language schools, what you should carefully check for are stipulations that serve to nullify the entire contract at the sole discretion of the employer (these are usually “buried” towards the bottom of the addendum). During the SARS epidemic, a few years ago, student enrollment at private schools abruptly fell off and many schools simply had to close due to a severe cash flow problem. Nevertheless, under the breach of contract clause, they were required to pay each of their teachers up to a 10,000 RMB penalty, plus provide them with a return airplane ticket. Subsequently, what many schools did thereafter was include a stipulation in the addendum that allows them to terminate all teaching contracts if need be without this constituting a breach of contract. If you see such a clause in your addendum, you should insist that it be removed because it essentially allows the school to terminate you at anytime for any reason they deem important.

How much room do I have to negotiate with?

That entirely depends on how badly the school wants you, as well as their perception of how difficult it would be to find another teacher they are equally interested in. As a rule, regarding teaching jobs in China, you will have a lot more negotiating power with a private school than you ever will with a government school or university. In addition, the better your initial conditions are relative to others, the harder it will be for you to maintain them upon contract renewal (for a thorough discussion of this phenomenon, see unit 26 on Contract Renewal). Generally speaking, the Chinese do not like to set new favorable precedents for one particular employee because they believe that doing so potentially obligates them to later provide the same improved conditions for everyone else. Therefore, the concessions you are most likely to receive, especially from public schools and universities, are the ones for which a precedent has already been set.

Unfortunately, there is no simple way for a prospective foreign teacher to ascertain which concessions have already been granted in the past. However, you will be able to intuit this by reading the school’s addendum carefully. If, for example, the addendum indicates that “reasonable improvements will be made to housing upon written request,” then it is fair to assume that the school might be willing to place an additional air conditioner in the second bedroom or might even agree to replace the typical 150 yuan rock-hard box-spring/bed with a real coiled-spring mattress.

The potential problem with engaging in ongoing negotiations is that it is very easy to hit a point of no-return the moment you are perceived as being overly demanding (at that is extremely subjective and varies considerably from person to person). Our best advice, especially if you really want or need the job, is to initially ask only for those concessions that you consider to be absolutely essential, as opposed to ideal, until such time that you have already begun working at the school and have become a known entity to them. Once you have proven yourself and the school is genuinely pleased with your performance, then you will have a little bit more latitude in what you can ask for, especially during contract renewal time, particularly if what you are asking for are concessions that don’t cost the school more money, e.g, specific days off, more desirable scheduling of classes, etc.

When negotiating via e-mail (or even over the phone and in person), it is best to be as indirect and coy as possible when making requests. The Chinese are quite skilled at picking up on subtle cues and innuendoes, and actually prefer negotiating in this manner. For example, instead of writing or saying “I’ll need a coiled-spring mattress,” what you should communicate is “Unfortunately, it is difficult for me to sleep on anything but a coiled-spring mattress and I understand the apartments currently do not have them, so I am very concerned about this. What would you suggest?” In response to a salary offer of 4,000 yuan for 16 hours of teaching per week, it is best if you reply with “Please allow me to explain my current situation in the hope that you can provide me with good advice” and then outline your current terms, assuming they are significantly better than what you have just been offered. If the school really wants you, they’ll match or exceed your current terms without you specifically having to ask for anything. In addition, by not specifically “demanding” anything, you leave yourself the option of accepting their terms at a later time if nothing better comes along, i.e., neither you nor the school has lost face during the process.

When agreeing to a “starting” salary, keep in mind that, in most cases, the salary you start with will be the same salary you leave with regardless of how many years you work for the same school (and, often, there will be all sorts of attempts to cajole more work out of you for the same money, year after year).

For related information about breach of contract issues and how to end your contract, see unit 4d, Contracts.

Posted on Thursday, July 31st, 2008 and is filed under China Teaching. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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