NORTH AMERICA
In Mexico, I really had two main problems (one of which was similar to the problem in Germany). The first problem was that the peso fell drastically against the dollar just prior to my moving there--and only got worse over the 1 when I labored in Mexico. The second issues was the fact that I had been invited to work a certain number of overtime hours and receive a certain amount of pay each month. These overtime hours were cut back the second semester I was there, and this deduction in overall expected salary was not recovered in the third semester I taught either.
In the USA, I was given 4 one-semester contracts to teach at Texas A & M in 2001 and 2002. The whole thing started as a bate & switch. The first terms (Summer 2001), I actually received 30%+ more pay than I did in any of the following three terms. In short, after the first semester, I often did the same amount of work for 30% less pay.
How did I get caught up in that scam? The main reason was that in the USA teachers and adjunct- or associate professors often have to start teaching in any one term or semester, i.e. without a contract being firmly negotiated nor a fixed contract having been offered. Part of this is due (at least at the university level) to last minute student enrollment figures. In school districts in Texas, Kansas, and other states, various schools start most every school year with no-negotiated agreement yet on hand. (This has occurred to my brother and his co-staff members in the Dodge City, Kansas school district for several years now. He often has to wait months or even nearly a year to get full-payment or retribution for his earnings due to these whimsical annual negotiations)
In short, in the USA, one is sometimes already in the act of teaching before one even learns what the negotiated agreement says. Likewise, by that time it is often too late to move on to another job or to another school district because the terms or semesters across the state (or region) have started already. The only choice then is to move far out of state or abroad to find work. (That is why I left Texas and moved to Mexico in August 2002.)
NOW CONGRESS IS MAKING IT OFFICIAL--THEY WANT TO GET FIRED
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