labour union

趁着记忆还算清晰，先写下来。
人生总是一段学习的历程，直到心跳停止的那一刻为止。Life is like a box of chocolate, u never know what will come out next.
Last friday, andrew tan of the boarding school called us residential tutors down and had a meeting with us. He told us something we hadn't expected, and our response also gave him a mild surprise, i think.
His version of the story: We have to pay a discounted 250 bucks a month for our stay in the boarding school, while in addition, have to perform 50 hours of offcie duty to compensate for the difference between the discounted rate and the normal rate.呵呵，当时我没反应过来，现在一想，既然已经discounted，又为什么要叫我们做工抵消差额呢？自相矛盾嘛。不过当时谁都没有反应过来，不过我们听到这个消息，也不干了。当时陈校长跟我们说过，在华中做工的话，在华中寄宿学校的住宿也是免费的，至多帮宿舍做一点事情而已，现在怎么又多出这250块钱的事情来了。不过我们又不能当时就打电话给陈校长，所以就先忍着，先没理他。
as he's pressing on us, we told him to check with mr tan first on our boarding status. well, we gave him an inch and he advanced a foot. he askes us to come out with a schedule of our office duty instead.
那我们更不干了。还没有确定我们住宿的条件是怎样的，就要我们准备做工，不合理嘛！we have to make informed decision!
so, seven of us, hongyi, susheng, zhipeng, khang, gian, yi jin and me began to argue with this stupid andrew.
we pointed out that it's ridiculous to charge us boarding fees at first place. we are stuff of the hwa chong insitution, and natually we should be able to stay in it's affiliated boarding school FOC! and other boarding schools like RIBS and ACSIBS are having such arrangements! Why are we so poorly treated?
啊？你说我们这里不一样，那住在这里的华中的舍监老师付钱吗？
‘as for the wardens, they have 100% responsibility to look after the boarders. if anything happens to their boarders, they have to shoulder the legal responsibilities, but u don't have to. u r considered residential tutors and have 0 responsibility.'
那好啊，那我们在学校做工，或是教书的，那也是已经承担100%的工作职责，为什么回到宿舍就不一样？那些不做舍监的老师们呢？他们要付钱吗？什么，要付300？住的什么房？guest room?那就对了，他们住有空调的豪华guest room,我们住的是普通房来的。我们又何必要付钱又做工？我们在华中里面做工能享受的福利又到哪里去了？
What about the treatment of our seniors? we understand that many of them came back last year for their A-levels, and stayed in the boarding school at the rate of 250/month, while working outside. how come we, the hwa chong staff, are treated the same way as none hwa chong stuff?
we basically bombarded him with questions. hehe, then a telephone call from the boarding school director saved him. it was confirmed. we either pay, or we do some work for the boarding school.
(interlude: a HCI sec 4 just came in and aske me some trigo questions involving double angle formula....)
ok loh... and we bargained again for some time on the hours we have to work. it was reduced to 40. we don't think it's a good idea to ‘quantify’our contributions to the boarding school by mere working hours (have to give description of what had been done and signed by supervising staff some more) ... well... it was not very satisfactory anyway, but a big leap from andrew tan's initail offer. so we accepted.
(moral of the story: 先把价码抬高，才有更多回旋的余地)
i think andrew tan was pissed. he called us ‘labour unior meeting'
so what, we have to protect our own rights.
indeed, i think the boarding school have to fixed the terms and conditions for the residential tutors' stay, instead of giving us vague promises and blank cheques to lure us to stay here and suddenly change face and bawk at us for ‘not paying boarding fees'. If the boarding school has no intention to fix it, we have to have our own 工会 to negotiate with the boarding school side so as to protect our own welfare.
总而言之,宿舍里是在想方设法剥削我们的劳动力。其实他们是缺一个正式员工的，却想方设法用我们的时间和精力去填补。现在每个礼拜还要在在宿舍里做2个小时工，一天平均下来要10小时了。关键问题是晚上被困在宿舍里。还好，周末还是被保住了。
i'm becoming a man of no life...haiya, i don't have much ‘life’ anyway.
看来在宿舍里，真的要像老妈说的那样，学会出工不出力。