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Does It Matter Where My China Work Visa Was Issued?
Written by Robert Vance on August 21, 2008 – 9:59 amAn English teacher from the southern China shares with us some interesting information about work visas in China. According to him, just because you have a work visa here does not necessarily mean that you are working legally. This information is especially important for teachers who are working at companies which have other branches in China.
Dear TeachAbroadChina.com,
I was very happy last month when my English training center finally handed me a passport with a work visa inside. I am finally a ‘legal’ teacher in China, I thought. I would not have to worry about getting sent home for working on a tourist visa. I could finally relax a little bit. Or so I thought.
A few weeks later, all of the foreign teachers at my English training center received an email from a ‘disgruntled’ teacher who had recently been fired from another branch of Metro. While his email was full of accusations about the company which we could not verify, there was one warning that he gave us which was a cause for great concern. According to him, those of us who had been issued valid working visas were still working illegally in China. He explained to us that our visas had been issued to us in the city where the headquarters of the English training center is located. This city is in a different province, well over 1000 Kilometers away. According to the law, teachers must be using work visas that were issued in the province where he or she is working. Our company, however, had never bothered to register their schools in this province because they were afraid that “it would cost too much money” and “bring to much trouble from the government.” As it turns out, another branch close by to us in the same province was raided two weeks ago, and four foreign teachers were arrested, booked, and forced to sign a confession of guilt for working with invalid work visas.
Other teachers at our branch had suspected that this was the case months ago and had confronted the manager about it. He had lied to those teachers assuring them that their visas were valid and legal. After we received this email, the manager attempted to lie to us again but when all of us confronted him about it in our office, he finally admitted that we were still working on invalid work visas. Later, we demanded to speak with the provincial manager and we accused him of violating our contract by providing us with invalid China work visas. We demanded that the school ‘make this right’ or we would leave. We were told a day later that the school was going through the process of registering here in this province so that we could be issued valid work visas. While we are thankful that they are taking action on this, we are pretty sure that nothing would have been done about this perilous situation unless it had been brought to our attention and we had confronted the company about it.
If you are working for a company that has branches throughout China then it is a good idea to check your work visa and make sure that it has been issued in your region. If it has not, you need to insist (demand is probably better) that your company get a valid work visa for you. If you are arrested by the police, you will be in the hot seat. There will probably not be much your company can do even if they wanted to.
Thank you for your time,
Rich from Southern China
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Great story Rich. Any chance you can spill the beans on the province or city that got raided?
Rules for the Administration of Employment of Foreigners in China
(Promulgated jointly by the Ministry of Labor, Ministry of Public Security, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation of the People’s Republic of China on 22 January, 1996)
Article 24 The employer of the foreign employee in China shall be the same as specified in his Employment License.
When the foreigner switches employers within the area designated by the Certificate Office but stays in a job of the same nature, the change must be approved by the original Certificate Office and recorded in his/her Employment Permit.
If the foreigner is to be employed outside the area designated by the Certificate Office or switch employer within original designated area while taking up jobs of a different nature, he must go through formalities for a new Employment License.
Seems pretty clear and i have heard that the nationals are cracking down on illegaly working in another province as your story suggests.