TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A teacher's union on Tuesday (March 26) called for a 25% pay hike for foreign teachers at the British Council Taiwan (BCTW) after a 20-year pay freeze.
In a press release issued that day, the Taiwan Higher Education Union (THEU) said that BCTW teachers have formed a branch of the union “after 20 years of management ignoring requests to increase salary scales to deal with cost of living increases.” The union said that over that period, the minimum wage has nearly doubled while inflation has risen by 25%.
The union said that BCTW requires its teachers to have internationally recognized qualifications and at least two years of teaching experience. To be promoted to a higher pay tier, teachers must obtain masters' level qualifications in language instruction and undergo additional training and development.
According to the union, clients are aware of these stringent requirements and are therefore willing to pay tuition fees that are substantially higher than the average. The union then pointed out the following key issues
Adjust the salaries and part-time rates to match the rising cost of living since 2004
Pay additional compensation for teachers required to work on weekends and evenings
Provide the correct amount of annual leave and sick leave pay for hourly contract teachers
Address the substantially increased workloads since the pay scale was first set
Compensate long-term teacher who was laid off without being provided the full severance package
The union said that management has agreed to provide severance for the former employee and pledged to provide part-timers annual leave and sick leave pay as required by law. However, the instructors are not convinced that “no longer breaking the law is a sufficient standard for the British Council,” and hold “little faith” that the management will honor its claims that it will consider pay raises.
THEU estimates that student fees have surged by at least 35% since 2016 and rise by about 5% per year. Since the BCTW opened an English training center in Taipei City's Xinyi District in 2004, the THEU estimates fees have doubled while teachers' salary scales have remained unadjusted.
What was one teaching center will soon expand to four with 2,000 students paying fees that are “douple the cost of many other English language cram schools in Taipei” according to the union. THEU alleges that a significant share of the total income is net profit that “leaves Taiwan to be added to the general company surplus, which is partly used to pay the wages of managers abroad.”
The union cited the BCTW's most recent report as stating that 650 employees of the company worldwide made over NT$2.4 million in 2022-23, 119 more staff than in 2021-22. THEU accused the company's executives of refusing to make any salary change to “make any offer that our members can take seriously in light of 20 years of inflation and absolutely no pay raise.”
The union closed by threatening to “take action” if the company does not provide offers that members consider "fair and reasonable.”
