Important Announcement From The China Foreign Teachers Union

[CFTU]

Good Evening To All...

This is our first, and thus far our only post on this TEFL forum which to date seems to be one of the most honorable in the TEFL industry, and one of the oldest. We were sent here by 7 of our members concerning some contentious posts disputing current salaries of expats and China foreign teachers. But before I address that issue. I would like to make one thing very clear...

Nobody is authorized to post on our behalf on this forum or any other. If we have something to share, we will post it ourselves under our own user name "CFTU". However, anyone and everyone is welcome to link to any of our official posts which can only be found in five places as follows:

https://reddit.com/r/cftu
https://ruqqus.com/+cftu
https://chinaforeignteachersunion.wordpress.com
https://eslwatch.info
https://opnlttr.com

We are all volunteer teachers at the CFTU and we do not sell any product, service, or even advertising. We have no source of income and until COVID hit, our office in Haidian District of Beijing was donated. From time to time we host some social events and holiday dinners. We do not offer legal advice although we provide teachers with China's Labor Laws and Employee Rights at the above links. We are not a true labor union (which are illegal in China) but we adopted this name way back in 2008 to let all the foreign teachers know that we lobby on their behalf. We do not support nor assist foreign teachers working illegally in China. We issue a monthly newsletter to our membership and here is a sample and more are available upon request (up to 3 old copies for non-members) by email at ChinaForeignTeachersUnion@gmail;

https://www.docdroid.net/62qeqhq/cftunewsletter120-pdf

Yes, we have a lot of enemies who try to smear us from time to time and in three cases have even tried to impersonate us. Over the last 10 years we have exposed and blacklisted of 389 con artists (as confirmed by the China Scam Patrol, the CTA, and even the PSB who arrested and jailed 12 of them including one woman who uses 5 alias names and 15 alias companies to swindle teachers. She alone was responsible for getting 1,200 expats arrested jailed, fined, and deported. Those we expose certainly have an ax to grind with us, These links better explain what we do and don't do in detail.

https://opnlttr.com/search/node/CFTU
https://www.reddit.com/r/ChinaScamCentr ... ftu_china/
https://eslwatch.info/en/articles/asia- ... ticle.html

As for the current 2021 salary debate about averages salaries for teachers in China, there are basically many categories as the CTA pointed out in their charts, but these numbers can be further broken down into four further subcategories:

A) Genuine Qualified Teachers With Verifiable Teaching Experience and University Degrees from ACCREDITED Universities
B) Black Market "Teachers" using fake credentials
C) Those teachers who obtained their employment through recruiters and job agents (Some of them are indeed honest)
D) Those teachers that went the DIY route and negotiated their own contracts.

Although SalaryExplorer, Forbes, Huffington Post, ECA, Kroll, BBC, ETA. China Daily, Global Times, CTA, etc. all confirm the current 2020-2021 all-time record high salaries in China at this time, this may only be a temporary situation due to the border lock-downs caused by COVID. Supply of qualified teachers is low and the demand is high. Salaries will probably drop once the borders re-open so we will revisit this topic when that happens.

We explain all of this at our own sites listed above and will not get involved with a user who seems focused on only attacking the messengers and not the message. Hopefully the above clarifies that we have no internet envoys, trolls, nor shills posting for us. We are quite capable of speaking for ourselves and have done so on 18 forums (now 19) over the last decade. TEFL.net seems to be one of the most honorable and well-organized forums in the TEFL industry and in the past we have commended Joe for vetting his advertisers, something most TEFL forums never do.

As you many of you already may know, Debbie and most of our crew are trapped outside of China at the moment. Hopefully, things will improve soon. With nothing more to add at this time, I sign off with a blessing and best wishes to all of you for continued good health and advice o continue your on-line work until the borders re-open. . Zai Jian -

Gregg F.
Co-Chairman
CFTU

[Atlas]

Thank you for the clarification. I was getting tired of taking heat for you guys. Also thanks for the links. They made me realize I was not current on China Labor Laws, and I did not know our employee rights were expanded to 22. It really pisses me off when the Chinese government only makes announcements in Chinese when they affect foreigners equally. If not for the translations on your reddit sub, I never would have known about my seven new rights as an employee in China. Once again xie xie.

[Cricket]

Mongolian John owes me an apology for his false accusation. Should I hold my breath?

[Prometheus]

I just got a pleasant surprise. All these years I thought the CFTU does job placements and and sold TEFL courses like everyone else. They don't. They really are providing free services without any profit motive. That's quite honorable IMO. They don't even charge a membership fee like the CTA does. I have just starting reading their newsletters and since they are also free, I suggest every teacher in China do the same.

[John V55]

‘This is our first, and thus far our only post on this TEFL forum which to date seems to be one of the most honorable in the TEFL industry, and one of the oldest. We were sent here by 7 of our members …’ (Joined 25 Feb 2021).

Or

‘Once again, we are compelled to stop by TEFL.net for a visit for the 4th time in 10 years …’
viewtopic.php?f=18&t=9044

Thank you for the clarification. At least we now know that our seven spammers are members of CFTU and so the spamming is now both verifiable and understandable.

[Prometheus]

How convenient mate. Anyone who disagrees with John or agrees with the CFTU is a bloody spammer! Piss off. Every one has a mind of their own and you sir are a bloody control freak trying to persuade everyone to work in Mongolia for a public school. Some of us have a brain you know.

[John V55]

How convenient mate. Anyone who disagrees with John or agrees with the CFTU is a bloody spammer! Piss off. Every one has a mind of their own and you sir are a bloody control freak trying to persuade everyone to work in Mongolia for a public school. Some of us have a brain you know.

If you had a brain, you wouldn’t a) have been scammed in the first place and b) be a member of an organization whose members have all been scammed themselves. I don’t care if you work for a government school in any location (not that they generally employ losers), or at the scammy bottom end of TEFL (which is highly likely). I’m just helping to prevent others ending up like you. :)

[Cricket]

Sorry for the delayed response but I just saw your derogatory comments where you said you don't want tefl.net use to be like me? You don't know me, we never met, and I think i have taught much longer than you in China. also you said that when you left China at the end of 2017 you were earning 15,000 a month a public school in Inner Mongolia. I am still teaching in China and have never earned less than 18,000 a month and that was with a furnishes apartment. Thanks to COVID and the teacher shortage it created, I am earning 22,500 today with another furnish apartment with 2.5 months paid vacation, a 5,000 Spring Festival bonus, medical benefits with a reputable school that has a SAIC license that is SAFEA - registered that provided me a Z visa from day one. I have an 88% approval rating from students and never had a negative teacher evaluation. In the last 5 years I missed three days of work because of the flu. So to be frank, I think I have done pretty dam good for myself, and i personally don't give a shit what you think.