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Hi everybody!
I worked for a language school in Vienna and they are withholding payment (they have put me off several times saying they are very busy 😯 )
Any ideas about how I can get them to pay up? So far, if they don’t pay within the next few days, I plan to..
name the school on all the forums I can find;
write to the students/employers asking them if they are aware of any problems as to why the school is not paying me.
I hope this will cause enough loss of face for them to pay me. Obviously, legal action is a last resort.
So, any more ideas I can add to my list?D
if you have no written prrof that they owe you, you can only ask them nicely. If you have a written proof, then you need to submit this proof to a lawyer and he should call the school.
Don’t waste your time on anything else.
@DavidN wrote:
Hi everybody!
I worked for a language school in Vienna and they are withholding payment (they have put me off several times saying they are very busy 😯 )
D
Were you employed by them (or are you still employed by them) or are you freelance and invoicing them?
What you can do depends on that.
I wouldn’t expect that contacting students of the school with your problem would help – imagine it the other way round, you would probably find it strange but ultimately decide it wasn’t your problem.D[/quote]
Were you employed by them (or are you still employed by them) or are you freelance and invoicing them?
What you can do depends on that.
I wouldn’t expect that contacting students of the school with your problem would help – imagine it the other way round, you would probably find it strange but ultimately decide it wasn’t your problem.[/quote]I meant the off-site students at businesses in Vienna – I got along very well with them and some even wanted me to do work directly for them (which, stupidly, I declined because I thought it would be wrong to take the contract away from the language school I was working for). Of course I wouldn’t just say “this school is not paying me”; I would just send a friendly email asking if there had been any problems, because the school is not paying me. I see nothing wrong in letting the clients know that the language school is dodgy, and I am sure that the language school would see that this could cause them problems.
@DavidN wrote:
Any ideas about how I can get them to pay up? So far, if they don’t pay within the next few days, I plan to..
name the school on all the forums I can find;
Fug dat – name the a-holes here and now. (As long as it’s true!!!) This type of behavior seems all too common in most countries, but there’s no reason to let it pass here just because it does. Expose them for the exploitive, morally challenged, unethical d*@kheads that they are. If not, they’ll continue on as if this is in some way ok. It’s not!! Not too much different from human traffickers in my book. Right up there with child abusers, pimps and drug dealers.
Hate to see you abused in this manner, but the most I could offer has already been covered by B/O and Gem. I hope I’m wasting your time when I suggest that you never, ever, EVER perform any work here without a written contract. And if you don’t speak or read German, try not to sign until you get someone other than the potential employer to translate and give you the gist of the wording. Good luck – I hope you don’t get taken by those clowns.
Dear DavidN,
first of all I would be cautious in your case what you would do.
The most important thing is to know what kind of contract did or do you have.
Only these exist:
A) Freie Dienstvertrag
B) Werksvertrag (Free lance)
C) Geringfügig Beschäftigung and
D) Echte DeinstvertragIf it is a Echte Dienstvertrag, then it should fall under the “Kollektive Vertrag”, your company employed you with. (Austria has about 1400 different one and if you were teaching, they have their own for teachers.
If you were fully employed by C & D, you just need to call up the Arbeiterkammer in Vienna and file a complaint and they will guide you as to what you should do.
If the contract was A & B with no written conformation, then you could also be liable for your action, as the work you were doing might have actually been C or D.
I would also be cautious about naming the school because it could fall under “Rufschädigung”.
I am also not defending the school, but it happened to me twice, that I did not get paid for 9 months solid!
The first contract was an Echter Dienstvertrag and I got my money back after two years (it went through a lawyer of the Arbeiterkammer), but according to the Arbeiter Kammer I was not just allowed to leave the company, otherwise it would have been “Firmenschädigung”, so they wrote a letter on my behalf for me to be “released” from the contract because of outstanding payment. I received my money as well as compensation and interest.
In the second company I did not and will NEVER get my money back, because it was under Free lance, only to find out that it was not free lance work that I did, but it was my fault because I did not have the contract reviewed.
Companies are by the way not allowed to choose what contracts they give you, depending on the kind of work you do, the laws are set forth by the Austrian government.
Please see link: http://www.help.gv.at/Content.Node/144/Seite.1440000.html
In my case I would never ever take free lance again because you almost have no chance when it comes to conflicts with companies, in addition you also have so many rights with an employment contract and you don’t have to worry about all the taxes and insurances. You do also have obligations though, which is only understandable if you are working on an employment contract.
@pam wrote:
Regarding employment type…
I am actually licenced as self-employed in Slovakia and provide “cross-border services”, so I am not an employee. I checked this out several times (I think it was with the AMS) and I can do this as long as my main business activity is not in Austria.
This was therefore a business relationship with no written contract. However, all lessons at the companies were documented with times/dates signed by the students. The timesheets did not have the school’s name on them, so I am investigating the possibility of billing the companies directly 😀 . (it won’t work of course, but it will cause hastle for the language school).Regarding “Rufschädigung”… The facts are provable – it’s a simple case of not being paid for work done.
OK, it might be that I will never see the money because the situation is quite complicated. I just don’t want to make it too easy for the language school to do this to me. If nobody causes problems in cases like this then nothing will ever change.
Dear David,
I am sorry that I am being so harsh on you, but I am hoping that your case might help you and others too in the future. (What to watch out for and what to do or NOT do, so please do not take this personally)
First of all I am speechless, how can you as an entrepreneur not have a written contract with another company, especially being over the boarder. You also stated that you can only do this as long as your main activity is NOT in Austria, so I am guessing that in Austria you would fall under “Echter Dienstvertrag”, because as far as I know the Social Security (WGGKK) is very strict with how Language Schools occupy teachers. To 80% they should fall under the above mentioned.
In your case, the AMS and Arbeiterkammer will not be of any help, since your occupation is not in Austria.
My only guess would be that you get a good lawyer, as this is a case between two “firms”, as meaning you being the other firm.
I would also send them a reminder letter of payment which is normal to do. If they do not respond after about 2 weeks, I would then send them one last one through a lawyer and then take it from there.
Regarding the “Rufschädigung”, you do not have a written contract so there is not much to prove if you would take this case to court, you only have written confirmation with the companies (times and dates). You have to see it that way;- objectively.
It would only help if these companies you have taught in prove that they have a contract with the language school. That is normally the case.
What I am also wondering is why a language school would “outsource” another company (you), over the boarder when there are so many qualified English teachers in Vienna too. This all does not make sense to me.
@pam wrote:
Dear David,
I am sorry that I am being so harsh on you, but I am hoping that your case might help you and others too in the future. (What to watch out for and what to do or NOT do, so please do not take this personally)
I do not think you are being harsh at all, but I must say that in all my 8 years of being self-employed, I have never had a problem with receiving payment (or at least none that could not eventually be sorted out).
They did pay the first two invoices, so it can be shown that I was providing a service to them for the same companies. I must point out though that if I was not providing a service to the school, who was I providing a service to? I would say the companies where I actually did the work. Now, it makes no difference, you might say, but these are very big companies and I can show that I did the work. This should allow me to put pressure on the school to pay me.
As you say it’s firm vs. firm. It may be that they will actually pay up. They haven’t said that they will not, so I’ll wait a bit longer.
Dear David,
I would not wait a bit longer, but at least send them a reminder of payment. It is a very normal thing to do especially between two companies, and I would not be worried that they might choose someone else’s services just because they received a reminder.
I think the mistake is sometimes waiting too long, because then that is when people start taking advantage of you.
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