Workers' Rights

I like to think of myself as having a strong character, but not someone who stresses too much about small stuff. That said, I have a temper and when it gets tripped, it is very difficult to stuff Pandora back into the box. As you are probably guessing by now, this happened recently. Fortunately, I discovered that is task was not left to me alone.

Last Saturday, I completed my last day of work at ALTA language training center. The school is designed around fast paced extremely intensive English courses for wealthy business people. They wine them and dine them at the price of 2,000 Turkish Liras per 5 day course. It is our job as teachers to wait on, clean up after, babysit and oh yeah educate them. We spend 9 hours a day locked in the room with 2-6 students with no breaks. We eat together, play games together and even drink wine together in the evening (admittedly a nice perk). We literally do everthing but piss with the students. There is even a rule requiring that if someone wants to smoke, the entire class should join them on the balcony, which is actually a fire escape. Every non smokers dream: cramming into a crowded space in the sweltering Istanbul sun while your colleagues blow smoke in your face....Awesome. Despite the cynicism, I usually genuinely loved the students and we would leave the course with promises to remain in contact. The school on the other hand, it is probably aparent, I did not genuinely love.

In May I decided that I had been successfully indoctrinated into the world of ESL teaching and had gained enough experience to move on. I put in my required 2 months notice, which fortunately included a month which I had already taken off in order to teach online. My primary reason for leaving was that I did not trust the company. These suspicions would later be confirmed.

As I mentioned, last week marked the end of my employment with ALTA. I finished my classes on Saturday with a little remorse as the week had gone splendidly. I even managed to get 5/5 in every category from each student on the company generated survey. This theoretically meant that I would get a bonus for the week. I didn’t really expect the company would honor the bonus given that it was my last week and bonuses generally come with the following payment. And as I already mentioned, I don’t trust them. This didn’t stress me too much, moreso I was just happy that my students were so pleased with the course. That said, I quickly changed my laissez faire approach to toward payment after leaving the classroom.

The staff member on duty that evening, Pinar, was particularly rude trying to rush us through the 7 or 8 pages of paperwork that must be meticulously filled out and the 20 some odd documents that must be signed. She kept repeating, “Come on. Once upon a time I had a ticket to a concert.” When I had finally successfully gotten through the mound, she presented me with my payment envelope and asked me to sign for it. I did not sign this document as when I opened the envelope it was 125TL short of what my weekly pay should have been. When I asked why, she irritatedly shrugged and said, “I don’t know, you’d have to talk to Kadir for that. Just sign.” Kadir, the teachers’ coordinator, who is in charge of our pay had conveniently choosen to work at the other office that day. When I convinced Pinar that there was no way that I would sign, without getting paid in full, she dialed him up.

According to our broken conversation, the 125TL had been deducted from my pay based on the fact that a student had dropped from my class. The student in question had in fact dropped out of one of my class.......in March. This had taken place during my trial week with the company. He assured me that this was standard and that it was stated in the “Guidelines for Teachers” which he had given me before I began working. This was a lie.

At this point, I will briefly explain how the employment process works at ALTA. A teacher first goes through a week of observation; watching other teachers to learn the method. If they are deemed worthy, they are given a trial week, during which they are in charge of their own course. Teachers are hired based on their success as an effective educator during their trial week. Kadir didn’t seem to notice the paradox of my being hired in the first place and his claim that money should be withheld based on a theoretical failure during my trial week. My pride also forces me to notify my readers that all students who stayed in the course during the trial week rated me with all 4s or 5s in all categories on the survey and even included positive comments regarding my skills as a teacher. I’ll spare any further rantings on this topic, but it will suffice to point out that I was livid.

My anger was ever further fueled by the fact that the teachers’ coordinator speaks English terribly and he was apparently on a crowded street. We are all familiar with the obnoxious, “What? I can’t hear you. What? What did you say?” back and forth to oblivion. Its even worse when the person you are speaking with is theoretically your manager but speaks English with an accent and grammar of a 12 year old with downs syndrome. When I gave in to the fact that the phone call was futile I yelled 4 times successively louder trying to remain calm and speak clearly that I was hanging up....I’m not sure if he ever actually understood, but frankly at that point I didn’t care. After hanging up I wrote a note on the sheet stating that I had not received my pay in full and gave Pinar her precious signature and sent her off to her concert. Needless to say, this was not the last day of work experience that I had hoped for, but at least it was over.

Akin and I had planned to go to our favorite restaurant and bar that evening to celebrate my last day of work. Sadly, I didn’t feel much like celebrating. Naturally I was happier than ever to be rid of the place, but my brain was running in loops. I was slowly putting together the big picture. Yes, ALTA had screwed me out of 125 TL, but that was only a drop in the bucket. The company keeps a salary custody from all employees of 1,500 TL, which is to be paid after they cease employment. I was now certain that they were going to come up with some excuse for keeping this. When I added all of the numbers together including the survey bonuses, the company owed me 2,005 TL and I was certain I would have to fight for it. Even though I was not in a celebratory mood, I definitely felt like a beer, so off we went.

We walked down to the restaurant, which has a great patio and is composed primarily of outdoor seating. We had been here many times before as it is a convenient meeting point and we had become good friends with one of the waiters. He would visit our house about once a week and we would go there for dinner with the same frequency. Something different happened on this night when we arrived at the restaurant. The owner of the restaurant invited us to sit with he and his friends in an area reserved for the affiliates of the establishment.

The worry on my face must have been obvious to everyone as both the owner of the restaurant and the owner of the building almost immediately asked Akin what was wrong with me. This was impressive because I had only met them each a couple of times and we didn’t share a common language. Akin conveyed the story of my afternoon while I fretted in my own little world. After the story was finished, the owner simply said, “Don’t let me forget this tomorrow.” About half an hour later, our friend, the waiter and cousin of the owner came and told Akin that I shouldn’t be worried, that the boys were going to get my money back.

Here I should provide you with some background. I live in an area of Istanbul called Besiktas, which is home to one of the biggest soccer teams in Turkey. As soccer, or football, is taken very seriously here, so are fan clubs. The individuals currently being discussed are the heads of the Besiktas fan group and the restaurant is a sort of base for them.This meant two things in my case. 1) They had a lot of connections. 2) They weren’t affraid of a little conflict. If anyone has seen Green Street Hooligans, you’ll have some idea of what I’m talking about.

Admittedly this made me a bit nervous. I didn’t want any drama, but I decided to trust them as I was completly on my own and they seemed to genuinely want to help. I needed some Turkish style influence. Honestly, I expected that they would forget my situation in a day or two anyway. I was wrong. The following day we stopped by the restaurant on the way home and plans were already in place to put pressure on ALTA. I was surprised with their interest in my situation and diligence to follow it up, but the building owner explained, “The money doesn’t matter and the amount isn’t important. You earned that money. We are very proud here and Besiktas center is a family. I understand your frustration, coming from the United States, but workers rights are not the same here. This is just how business is done in Turkey.”

Yesterday Akin went with one of the men to ALTA and argued my case. The company now knows that they will not get to keep my money without a fight. I don’t know how it will ultimately turn out but the situation has taught me a lesson about the importance of loyalty and community in Turkey. I am still furious that my employer would try to get away with such a blatant attempt at stealing from me, but even stonger is my appreciation for the individuals who looked out for me, despite our limited familiarity. They have made me feel more at home in Turkey and more protected than anything over the last 6 months.

Disparity in Turkish Education

I have several friends in Istanbul, who are educators of various kinds. One friend works in a public school which is run by the city. She is an English teacher, though her English is admittedly not that good. When I asked her about her work she explained to me that she mostly uses textbooks and that the children, 5th graders, will work independently correcting sentence structures and filling in missing vocabulary words. When I pointed out that this completely ignores the two most essential forms of the English language, speaking and listening, she giggled and said, “Those aren’t possible in my school.” Confused, I pushed the issue further. “What do you mean? How can you have an English class without speaking?” She responded, “I do speak to some, but most of them don’t hear me even when I do. I have classes of around 70 students. I mostly just try to keep them in their seats and prevent them from poking each other with pencils.”

Fortunately for some, there is an alternative. Private schools have become increasingly popular in Turkey and learning English has become a very important part of their agenda and a globalizing world. These schools strive insist on hiring native English speakers whose wages are generally 30-50% higher than their Turkish counterparts. I had the opportunity to visit one of these schools recently. I entered a building that looked like a wealthy plantation home through 20 ft freshly painted white colums. The entry closer resembled a Las Vegas hotel reception than a school with its marble floors, atmospheric lighting and molded ceiling. I was given a tour of the grounds which included a beautiful olympic sized swimming pool and gardens. The multimedia center included computers for each student which could be used for English listening labs. The staff included 9 English teachers, 4 of whom were native for a student body of 1000. Each teacher was issued their own laptop by the school and provided with ample working space in a shared office with plentiful supporting materials. I was also informed that each year the students would take a trip to a different country to suppliment their English education. Last year they had visited the European Parliment in Brussels.

I was absolutely dumbfounded at the stark contrast between the two situations that I had encountered. Even more so by the fact that the students coming from either institution were somehow expected to compete with one another in the future job market. It seemed nearly impossible that an average coming from the public sector could ever hope to work hard enough to compete with an average student who had had so much of an advantage, but it seems impossible that such a highbrow education could be made available to the masses without a drastic restructuring in the countries education system and the funding that it receives.