Fay, my Dad has apparently been working with the American University (which I should have known, but apparently forgot). And I'm so sorry about the piece of shit employer.

the fraud alert should automatically generate the credit reports, you don't need to do anything else, they'll arrive in the mail in the next few days.

That's what I thought, but the instructions on the phone were kind of ambiguous about that, and made it sound like we had to get one. I didn't get a human at any of the agencies, so I couldn't ask questions.

Is he still here, love? I feel I should go and find him and say "Hey! Here's stuff for Emily!" 'Cause that would be cool.

Incidentally, Cindy - SO sorry about your situation wrt the bank thing. Best of luck with this, love.

Why is the 'verse suddenly out for our asses? Damn it!

It looks pretty damned defiite now that we'll be walking out as soon as we get our pay for this month - assuming that we DO get the salary for this month. I'm now penning a letter of explanation to the parents. Will run it by lawyers (we're seeing another lawyer tomorrow), but here's my first draft. Thoughts appreciated. (NB - I plan to get a friend to translate it into Arabic & type out an Arabic version to go on the back.)

Dear Parents,

I am very sad to tell you that this is my last day as a teacher at The Evil School.

Unlike the 6 other teachers who have left The Evil School this year mid-contract with little or no warning, I have honoured the 2-year contract that I signed with The Evil School. The contract I signed did not contain any clause to stop me from working at a different school in [city] after completing this contract.

I have decided not to return to The Evil School next year, but I love [city] and I would like to continue working in [country]. I have told Mr Evil this. He considers it unacceptable. I now discover that he never signed the contract himself, and he is refusing to sign it.

Mr Evil has told me that he has no written contract with me.

According to the contract I signed, I am still owed four months’ pay and a return ticket to the UK. Since Mr Evil never signed it, he does not consider himself bound by this contract. He has also said that I may not be paid for June, and that he wants to charge me for the cost of recruiting another teacher next year.

He has told me verbally and in writing that he has no problem with my teaching or my professionalism – indeed, he has told me that he considers me to be “a very nice young woman” and that he would be more than happy to sign a contract with me for next year. (I enclose a copy of his memo.)

As I do not wish to work for The Evil School next year, he has decided that he will not sign or honour my written contract.

This puts me in an impossible position. I need to secure paid work in order to continue to honour my financial commitments over the next few months. This is the last month of term, when we write reports, have parents’ meetings and prepare handover packs for next year’s teachers to tell them about your child’s progress this year. I do not want to leave my class, but Mr Evil has left me no choice. I am a trained and highly qualified professional, and I cannot afford to work for free.

I have enjoyed teaching your child enormously, and I feel confident that they will continue to make progress next year. [Name of class] has been a pleasure to work with. I am very sorry that I shall not be able to see them through to the end of this term. I shall miss them all. I wish you and your child all the very best in the future.

Yours sincerely

FayJay MA (Hons) AIEC

t leaps to end of thread

Sheesh. Scanning back, Fay and Cindy need a lot of sanity ~ma. I'm so sorry you're dealing with all of this.

Also, P-C was kind enough to link me to this, which I would otherwise have missed since I've been way behind in all but the F2F thread lately:

A small woot is in order. I just got back from seeing Katie Melua in concert. It was a most enjoyable show. Is Kristin around? She's the artist I was playing in your car while visiting. The show closed (with the exception of encores) with my fave song.

Yay, billytea! I loved that CD. I'm so glad you had a good time.

Okay, must do a metric fckload of laundry and more stressful other things than I can really count.

He thinks we owe him money because he has to recruit our replacements.

Fay, that is complete and utter bullshit. His cost for recruiting teachers is the cost of doing business. What a scum-sucking asshole.

Teppy, Owen and I met DH for lunch at Skyline. It was gooooood.

Is he still here, love?

No, I'm afraid he just got home. He was supposed to be able to move into his Brand New House last weekend, but it is of course not finished (just as it was not finished last July, when it was supposed to be the first time).

Fay, Mr. Evil is acting just fiendish. And it certainly seems as though there should be contract law covering this -- how could he possibly not have signed a contract when he obviously hired you and knew you were working there? (I take it you don't have a copy of the contract.) And even if he didn't, you did, which should hold a certain amount of legal weight. Grr! Just... dastardly, and acting in very bad faith.

He thinks we owe him money because he has to recruit our replacements.

Which is totally attempting to have it both ways, because if there's no contract obliging him to pay you, there certainly can't be one obliging you to do anything at all for him, especially something so farcical as this. What an.... arrrrg.

I really doubt that he can in any way charge you for the cost of recruitment. He thinks he has a couple of scared little girls in a foreign country to play with and that if he growls loudly enough you'll fall into line. He's incompetent and immoral.

He is beyond stupid, to imagine that I'm going to be intimidated by any of this. But I really want to be sure that we're not opening any legal can of worms - I'm conscious that (a) I ticked a box indicating I would be renewing my contract, and then turned around and said I wouldn't after all. And that (b) he had told us there would be a clause preventing us from working in the city for anyone else for 3 years after the commencement of the contract. I know I was expecting it, but when it wasn't in the contract I was given, I just thought "yay!" and didn't quibble. God knows I'd had enough unpleasant surprises (no salary until the end of the 2nd month, hardly any chairs and tables, no reading scheme, scanty and outdated resources, no policies of any kind, no subject co-ordinators etc etc etc) so having a pleasant surprise seemed like my karmic due by that point.

If he has the wit to remember, he did email me a copy of someone else's contract after I'd accepted his job offer. As a sample. He said it was an old contract, and that mine would be the same kind of thing but with different name and salary. I've gone back to check through it, and I find that it did contain that clause. It wasn't my contract, though. It was some other bloke's. The contract I was eventually given with my name on it and my salary did not contain the clause.

If I were a lawyer inclined to screw me, though, I fear that I could probably make something of that.

I would guess he never signs the contracts. Fucker.