A foreign teacher has won a lawsuit against St Dominic Catholic High School in Kaohsiung and is to receive financial compensation following a recent court ruling.
The lawsuit was filed by a man identified as teacher “J.” He worked at the school from September 2002 to August 2007, and from September 2008 until his retirement in September last year, at the age of 65.
J said he did not receive a retirement pension and found that the school had not registered him for labor insurance. He sued the school and demanded compensation of NT$3.7 million (US$112,698).
Photo: Taipei Times
J was not a full-time employee, but was hired on a contract as a part-time teacher, school officials said in the court hearing.
The school said that according to the contract, the Teachers’ Act (教師法) applied to J, but not the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法), so they did not register him for labor insurance coverage.
J said he could not accept the school’s explanation, as he had taken on teaching classes.
He also had to arrive at 7am for several days each year around Christmas to take students to various elementary schools in the city to sing carols, J said.
J regularly attended meetings for the school’s bilingual language program, during which he took meeting minutes, and assisted in other tasks, such as supervising examinations, helping training workshops and doing administrative work, the court ruling said.
J said that he had performed teaching and administrative work, and was therefore eligible for coverage under the Labor Standards Act, so he filed a lawsuit demanding NT$3.7 million, the amount of retirement pension and work performance bonus he should have received for his years at work.
During the trial at the Kaohsiung District Court, school officials said that as a private school, they do not need to adhere to the Labor Standards Act and had no obligation to register J for labor insurance nor pay him pension.
The court ruled against the school, citing the Ministry of Labor’s stipulations for contract workers hired by private schools.
Some of the work J did was covered under the Teachers’ Act, but other tasks, such as teaching and administrative work, fell under the Labor Standards Act, the ruling said.
J had also signed a contract with the school, the job description of which was: “to work as an English language teacher, in addition to other tasks such as school administrative work,” it said.
The contract also stated the teacher’s rights and obligations, which included “taking on two hours of administrative work each week, under direct instruction by the school’s administration office,” it added.
The court sided with J, saying that he had participated in the promotional drive for the school’s language program to attract new students, led students in singing Christmas carols at other schools and taken on other tasks which were clearly not related to teaching, so he should be covered under the Labor Standards Act.
The court awarded him NT$1.46 million in compensation.
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