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http://www.thepulse.cl/2009/10/08/daily-news-teachers-strike-shuts-down-english-school/

The work stoppage at the Sam Marsalli Audio-Visual Institute continues this week, as many teachers have still not been paid for their work.  As of Monday morning, no one from the administration has been available for comment, although rumors of mass firings have circulated through the group of foreign workers affected by the refusal to pay monthly salaries on time.

Tomorrow morning, October 13th, at 10am, there will be a peaceful demonstration at the administrative campus of the school, with members of the press in attendance.  According to unnamed sources within the teachers’ group, the public is encouraged to attend, as well as the institute’s students.  “The public has a right to know when they are being blindly lied to. People shouldn’t keep throwing away their money on a product that is not what it claims to be,” says an unnamed employee.

Battling many complaints over the “money-back guarantees” given by the institute about students’ fluency and the course materials provided, the institute has even inspired a closed FaceBook group for students who have filed lawsuits against Mr. Marsalli and his schools, called Estafados por Sam Marsalli. “He stays in business through volume sales… and he hires people from outside of Chile,” says the teacher who faces being fired for the work stoppage.  The quality of English education in Chilean primary and secondary schools is considered by most to be mediocre, and the appeal of learning English from a native teacher as an adult ensures that demand for these classes remains high despite the school’s lackluster reputation.

But because so many English teachers in Chile working at the private institute level are foreign workers without the legal protection afforded to citizens, it is a labor force that is particularly vulnerable to abuses.  As most native English-speaking foreigners will agree, the job market for teachers in Chile is both wide open and open to plenty of poor practices – the high turnover rate leads to many employees choosing to simply quit when confronted with problems about pay, schedules or various other abuses rather than brave their way into a confusing bureaucratic legal system.

This is the second work stoppage due to nonpayment of salaries in the past 12 months at the school.  The current stoppage, which began last Wednesday evening after Mr. Marsalli failed to meet the verbally agreed-upon deadline for paying the teachers’ monthly salaries, has caused suspension of most classes in Santiago as well as Concepcion campuses.  There was apparently no comment from the administration to the students over the long weekend, and many still await their checks with overdue bills looming.

The public is encouraged to join the demonstration tomorrow morning at 10am, as the teachers congregate on the campus to speak to students, the media, and the administration.  The campus is located in Providencia at Los Leones 1095.  For more information, email: sammarsalliteachers@gmail.com.

by Zoë Vercelli, Editor

zoe.vercelli@thepulse.cl