Legal Expertise Secures Unexpected Severance for Dance Instructor at Xi’an University
Felix Garruto, a Canadian-Italian dance instructor at a university in Xi’an, reached out to me for assistance. He was referred by a past client I had aided two years prior.
Having served the university for four years, Felix was unexpectedly informed that his contract would not be renewed. Confused and feeling unjustly treated, he sought my legal expertise.
Under the law, Felix was eligible for a severance package equivalent to four months of his salary, totaling 80,000 RMB, since he earned 20,000 monthly. This was a surprise to Felix as his contract did not mention such entitlement. However, legal statutes override contractual terms, granting him the right to this compensation.
Once the possibility of legal action was presented, the Human Resources department quickly shifted their demeanor from dismissive to cooperative, agreeing to expedite his payment. Thanks to my intervention, Felix received his due funds within just two days.
Felix’s Testimony
Hello, everyone! My name is Felix Garruto. I’m an Italian-Canadian. I’ve been working in China for the past twenty years. Today I have decided to make a video testimony of my situation, concerning my employment, concerning the termination of my employment, after fours years of having worked at the same company.
And…
My testimony involves the hero of the story which is Edgar. Firstly, I wish to say that I prepared that written testimony, but I have a page and a half long, but I decided to put that aside and just to make it informal.
Okay. So let’s start with explaining the situation. As I said, I’ve been working for the same company for four years in Xi’an. It’s in a university. I worked in a university. I’m hired by a company which is affiliated to the university. The low work, I only have four hours a week. Two afternoons a week. I’ve been teaching for four years. And I got a good pay. And the reason why the workload is so low, is that the university has a restriction. It requires the company to hire two foreign teachers. But there’s only one that’s needed. We only have two classes, only fifty students. And since I’ve been there the longest, I get the lowest workload. And that’s how it’s been for the past four years. And it’s great, low workload, that enabled me to work on my book project that I’ve been researching for twenty years.
I began writing two years ago. And I’m ready to wrap it up. And also I began training two years ago. And I began dancing, salsa and bachata. So it’s been very good. Now six weeks ago, I was, my colleague and I were abruptly announced that our employment would be terminated.
Why?
Because we, we’ve been asking for raises for the past, me for the past two years, and him for the past year. And instead of telling us we can’t give you a raise and negotiating with that, they just terminated our contract, and look for other teachers at lower salaries and more conditions.
On top of that, just last Friday, June 30th. They announced to me that my visa,the process to cancel my visa would be activated as soon as my contract to the end, which was three days ago. On top of that, I’d have to leave my apartment in ten days. On top of that, I’m sixty years old, this year. Although it may not sure, although just a number. I mean in appearance, in physical state and energy, I’m forty. I mean forty with, I look forty, I’m forty that looks like 35-year-old. Or something, something like that. Anyways. I’m in good shape. But due to my age, sixty, I’m having a hard time finding other employment. So it’s taking longer that I thought. The only offer that I have is a high workload, low salary, which I totally refused. And so this is my situation and on top of that, this year, I have a lot of expenses. And my savings were down to almost none. And I have to leave my apartment in… And when I found the news, we could go, they told me I have to leave my apartment in ten days later, in three days from now. So as you can see, things just couldn’t get worse. To put it in plain English, that the shit hit the fan, you know, it totally did. I was totally totally stressed out of my mind. And I didn’t know what I would do. Then I remembered my colleague, who began working at this company two years ago, had told me that he had hired the lawyer, because they screwed them of this first two-month pay is at that time Covid-19 began. He was supposed to start working in February of 2020. And instead of having him working and pay him, they continued paying the other worker, teacher, who have left and gone back to America. But he was teaching online, so he got cheated that is two-month salary. And he looked for a lawyer, he found Edgar.
And Edgar gave him some information, he found out that this company was doing illegal activities and so on. So I remembered that and I asked him to give me the contact of Edgar, of that lawyer, if he still added, and he did. He sent it to me. I sent a contact to quest Edgar, he answered right away. I noticed Edgar in his introduction, he says written consultations are free of charge. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but anyways. I started explaining my situation. And also I had very little money to hire a lawyer, but I decided that’s what I needed to do. I explained my situation, I told him my idea to send the school a letter, saying that if there, they will cancel my visa, I would report them for illegal activities.
And Edgar, the first sentence he told me, changed the whole thing. He said, if they will hire, if they will terminate my contract, they need to pay me four-month severance pay. Four-month severance pay, that’s 20k, that times four, that’s 80k. Plus month of June, that’s five months, plus four days of July, plus 6k for trouble allowance for end of contract. The allowance that it up added up to 110k.
I sent a snapshot of that to the ladies in charge of my employment, the one who terminated me. Up to that point, she had been treating me like trash, like garbage, not listening to anything I would tell her, including the threats. But that one snapshot of Edgar saying that they have to pay me, and also I questioned him after that, I said but it’s not in the contract, he said it doesn’t matter. It’s in the law, and the law overrides the contract. I sent her that information. All of a sudden, her tone changed from being so treating me like trash, she became very cooperative, all of a sudden! Strange how people cooperate once a lawyer gets involved.
She said, okay. I’ll ask my boss the next day. The very next day, she replied. She said that the school agreed to grant me my four-month severance pay. And a few days later, just three days ago, July 4th, July 5th, all the money was put into my account in one lump sum.
There we go. So my money problem is solved. I have the funds now. I still have to leave the apartment. Oh! They will also let me stay in my apartment till the end of the month of twenty more days. I got the money,I got time to look for another job, time to solve the visa problem. So finally I just want to say I owed all this to Edgar. And he didn’t charge any money. And all that, the two. I just can’t believe it. You know. As you can see, I’m a Christian. I was a Taoist for twenty years. Twenty seven years, I followed Taoism. I now put an X over all the religions. I did my own research in the past three years. And I found that the Bible is the truth. And I think Edgar is a person that, you know, that’s what the Bible says, you know, to love your neighbor like yourself. Help people.
So that’s it. That’s my testimony. And I wish everyone good luck. I wish everyone to be happy to have everything they need, the funds and everything good, you know, good employment and so on. Thank you everyone. And good luck to all.
Legal Basis
Labor Contract Law of the People’s Republic of China
Article 46 The employing unit shall pay financial compensation to a worker under one of the following circumstances:
(1) The worker revokes the labor contract pursuant to the provisions in Article 38 of this Law;
(2) The employing unit proposes revocation of the labor contract to the worker pursuant to the provisions in Article 36 of this Law and the parties reach an agreement thereon through consultation;
(3) The employing unit revokes the labor contract pursuant to the provisions in Article 40 of this Law;
(4) The employing unit revokes the labor contract pursuant to the provisions in the first paragraph of Article 41 of this Law;
(5) The fixed-term labor contract is terminated pursuant to the provisions in Subparagraph (1) of Article 44 of this Law, except that the worker does not agree to renew the contract even though the employing unit maintains the same conditions as, or offers better conditions than, the ones stipulated in the previous contract;
(6) The labor contract is terminated pursuant to the provisions of Subparagraph (4) or (5) of Article 44 of this Law; or
(7) Under any other circumstances provided for by laws or administrative regulations.
Article 47 Financial compensation shall be paid on the basis of the number of years a person works in a unit, the rate being one month’s salary for the work of one full year. If he has worked for six months or more but less than one year, the time shall be calculated as one year; and if he has worked for less than six months, he shall be paid half of his monthly salary as financial compensation.
If the monthly salary of a worker is three times the average monthly salary of the workers of the region for the previous year, which is published by the people’s government of the municipality directly under the Central Government or by that of the city divided into districts where the employing unit is located, the rate for his financial compensation payable shall be three times the average monthly salary of the workers, and the number of years involved shall not exceed 12 years.
For the purposes of this Article, the monthly salary means the average of a given worker’s monthly salary for the 12 months prior to the revocation or termination of the labor contract.