Deconstructing a BKC-IH Moscow Job Advert

McDonald's is always hiring and so is BKC-IH Moscow. We shall take the opportunity to dissect the Teach English in Moscow job advertisement running on Eslcafe.com.

"BKC – International House is one of the most respected Language Schools in Russia. Being a member of the International House World Organization our School is regularly inspected by the International House representatives to ensure maintenance of educational and welfare standards".

• BKC-International House Moscow is not a respected language school. One needs only to look at blogs by both teachers and students to recognize that this is hyperbole and nothing more. 
• BKC-IH Moscow is not "regularly inspected" by International House. There is no evidence that International House pays Moscow any visits. BKC-IH Moscow pays a yearly fee to International House to use the IH name brand to lend more credibility to an otherwise unsupervised school engaged in unethical and illegal activities. 

Experience: 2 years +  

• Not factual. Many teachers come to this school with no experience whatsoever.

Main Terms and Conditions of BKC Contract

• Salary: $ 1040-1160 - The salary has been lowered once again from previous years.
• Length: 8 months and 3 weeks - Untrue: your contract is actually more like 10 months when your holiday time is counted.
• Benefits: end of the contract bonus –up to US $ 1000 - The contract states that you will be paid this bonus if they feel like giving it to you. 
• Visa support - Not exactly. BKC-IH Moscow is having many problems with visas for teachers. Teachers absolutely cannot count on BKC Moscow to tell the truth about the visa situation or fairly reimburse the visa costs.
• Shared accommodation - True.
• Local transport paid by the school - True, though it comes in the form of reimbursement. 
• Airfare subsidy - True, but the amount changes. You may be told the round-trip airfare reimbursement will be $1,000 and then later in the contract, it will be changed to less than that.
• Paid holidays - Not always true
• Health care - True but perhaps not what the average person believes to be "health care".
• 50% discount for Russian classes - True. After the discount, it is approximately $90 USD monthly.
• Hourly paid positions are available as well. The rates range from $ 22-31 per academic hour. True, but as an hourly employee you are at the mercy of the Timetable ladies who may not give you enough hours to survive.

Write for BKC Moscow and Make Big Money!

That is a lie. You will write for BKC Moscow and you will earn no money.

BKC Moscow is currently propositioning teachers to write for their "teacher" website, which has been defunct since oh, about 2002. 

Since BKC Moscow has such bad press from teacher blogs, not to mention the almighty ESLCafe.com, and even a mainstream magazine, they must be thinking - oh we have to get some good stories up on this Internet thing all the kids are talking about.

As our intrepid team wades through the World Wide Web (as it was known back in the day), we browsed through the old BKC Moscow teacher's site and found this interesting article written by a guy none of us recognizes.

From his musings on the article, we gather that this young man is likely whoring it up in some third world country, or otherwise financing his sex-tours.

This BKC Moscow teacher wrote about - and BKC Moscow published - the following:

• Threatening stops by the Russian police. One incident in which the Russian police put his hand on his gun to intimidate the teacher. 
• Boasting about his sexual escapades. "My second visit saw me being chatted up by a young girl who was bi-sexual. Sadly nothing exciting came of this meeting. My third visit (yes, I really like this place!) saw be being invited onto the bar come stage by a beautiful blonde and leggy stripper who undress herself, and then undressed me. Completely. Photographic evidence is available at www.HungyDuck.com if your are prepared to pay the fee for viewing."

(We couldn't make this stuff up if we tried.)

• This guy also notes that he was accused of sexual harassment which was of course denied by him and laughed off by the geniuses at BKC Moscow. 
• Claimed that although the wages from BKC Moscow were "meant" to indicate a middle-class lifestyle, he could not afford a washing machine and thus washed is clothes in the tub. 

Read the entire article here

And then, after you do that, read between the lines. This is what BKC Moscow is using to ENTICE young teachers to come work for their corrupt school.. All the sex you want! Clubs! Discos! Vodka! More sex! Bisexual, trisexual, threesomes, whatever you want! Sightseeing! Look at all the buildings!

This guy didn't write much about what it was like to be an actual teacher. The article was filled with typos and grammatical errors. We are guessing that he was wasted most of the time and couldn't be bothered to do much teaching, not when his main goal seems to be getting into every club in Moscow and fucking as many girls as possible.

Read even further into it and you will see that this teacher was thoroughly convinced, as was BKC Moscow, that this article was appropriate and in fact welcomed by the ex-pat teaching community.

Become a teacher and get lots of sex and booze and police stops and pay a bunch of bribes. Oh yes and teach once in awhile. That basically sums up BKC Moscow's recruiting tools.

God bless those fools.

Horror Story - The Truth About BKC Moscow

There was a lady who began a contract with BKC Moscow in September 2009. She is no longer with the company, since BKC Moscow (apparently) fired her illegally. According to the blogosphere, she is taking her case to Russian court.

Read the incredible story here, on ESLCafe.com.

The Truth About BKC Moscow

The Russian Government is Now Throwing Teachers Out (it wasn't the government after all - BKC Moscow threw her out).

As promised, here is a true-to-life field story about the type of health care BKC Moscow offers you. This is from the teacher's personal blog:

A Teacher's Story of What Happened When She Got Sick and What BKC Moscow Did About It (close to nothing, it seems)

Take a moment to look at your payslip to see the money that is going into your "insurance" fund. It is, as you may have already guessed, a joke.

We also regret to inform you that part of our crew of contributors to this blog  no longer work for BKC Moscow. This happens every year. In January or February of every year, there is a mass exodus of teachers. Half-way through the contract, many teachers finally decide that enough is enough and they take leave.

As the author of this particular blog post, I wish to congratulate you on finding this blog. If you are planning to come to Russia to teach English - please do not choose BKC Moscow. They promise the moon and they hand you a pile of rocks. Then they take the rocks back and throw them at you.

If you insist on coming to Moscow, and BKC Moscow is the only job you can find -- take the visa. .Get into the country. And then run to another school. Run and do it quickly.

Bad things happen to teachers who come to work with BKC Moscow. That is why you will almost never find a teacher who has been here long-term.

Teachers are harassed, threatened, and intimidated by BKC Moscow. They quite literally do not care if you live or die.

If you would like to become a contributor to this blog, we will withhold your name. Just leave a comment and we will do the rest.

Teachers get kidnapped here. (This did happen to three new teachers last year, and BKC Moscow treated it as a joke although it was quite scary to the teachers involved, though they later developed a sense of humor about the situation -- we will post that story in an upcoming post). Teachers get sick here. They develop alcoholism and drug addiction. In some unfortunate cases, BKC Moscow teachers quite literally go crazy. It has happened.All of it. This is what they do not tell you when you are first hired. This is what they do not tell you when you are in Orientation.

Good luck to us all.

Can Hourly Paid, Off-Contract BKC Teachers Get Some Fucking Flats?

Originally posted on the BKC Teacher's Forum

Free flats?

May 15, 2009

Dear person in charge of accommodation

I read on the Internet that all licensed educational establishments in Russia are required by law to provide free accommodation to foreign English teachers. Is this true? Doesn't this mean that you have to provide for off-contract teachers too? Or at least give them an allowance for their apartments?

I look forward to your considered answer.

May 31, 2009

It is so easy to know when a nerve has been struck in BKC. Deafening silence...

Foul-Mouthed Complaint About BKC Moscow

Originally posted on the BKC Moscow Teacher's Forum


Foul-mouthed complaint about BKC

Excuse me while I call foul: "Foul! You big fat ugly LIARS!'

Why you might ask, am I so incensed? Well, it might be because BKC and its key players in administration don't feel the need to be even the slightest bit interested in consistency. New rules are dreamt up: contract changes. New season appraoches: tax regulations mysteriously change too. To make my point more clear, let's look at two different utterances from the horse's mouth. I quote from the Head of Recruitment, as posted on this very forum:

1. Originally (and it IS the case in any other language school in Moscow) only the full time contract teachers are provided with visas, because it costs something to the company and also implies some responsibilities for both parties. As a favour we offered visa support to those willing to work for us and those who were prepared to spent most of their time teaching BKC groups. As inviting organization we hold certain responsibilities in front of authorities for those who have BKC visas and have to pay those authorities officially fixed tariffs, taxes etc.
In case an hourly paid teacher works 24 hours with us we earn enough from classes he/she teaches to pay all those tariffs. In case an hourly paid teacher can't, doesn't want or is not able to work 24 hours why would the company bear all the expenses?

Now, what do we learn at the last meeting? Behold:

The minimum number of teaching hours for those who has BKC visa and works on an hourly basis is 18.

Excuse me? Like what the fuck is going on with all those 'tariffs' we had to pay prior to summer? Why were some of us FINED 6 fucking thousand fucking rubles when our one-to-one students cancelled their lessons, and we were just short of 24 hours? To cover visa costs? And now 18 hours is mysteriously enough to cover the same visa and the same visa costs? I cry FOUL! What a fucking scam!

There never were any taxes needing paying to the authorities which merited 24 hours. You were just milking the crisis for all you could. But now that summer is approaching and legions of teachers are fleeing, and most of the EMT too, now you realise that you'll be fucked again in August/September. So maybe that's the reason for suddenly realising that 18 hours is enough to cover these mythical 'taxes' on the visa - a vain attempt to hold on to staff?

Am I right, or am I fucking right?

What a foul fucking company!

Reply From Another BKC Teacher

Too true,

The decision to lower the "hour ceiling", if you let me use the Boro's BKC dollar inspired phrase, shows that the whole thing was a scam in the first place. Unless BKC is now willing to pay the charge incured by teachers who end up working 18 hours only in the summer period.

Anyhow, the first expanation sounds much more likely, given that we are talking about BKC-IH Moscow.

Reply From Another BKC Teacher

One more thing - it would be extremely helpful to know how the charge is decided on.

What I mean is whether is it enough to work 96 hours per week (with the weekly minimum of 24 hours) not to be charged, or does a teacher have to work every single week at least 24 hours.

You see there are weeks when I clock as many as 35-40 hours, so if the charge was imposed only in the first case ( not less than 96 per month), it would mean that I and any other teacher could make up for hours lost due to some laid-back one-2-one students not showing up at the end of a week, if I make myself clear.

Whatever the case, as always our having knowledge would help.

Another Reply

I'm curious. If having a BKC visa implies responsibility on both parties' sides, does that mean the freelancers are going to get all their health benefits, tax details and holiday pay? It is the case that it is BKC's responsibility to provide such for all their employees. If in doubt, consult the law.

Anybody in Boro wish to comment? Or shall you ignore such niceties also?

Reply From an Actual BKC Administrator (aka Boro Lady)

Yes, a teacher should work 24 hours every single week.

Hours were decreased for Summer because the company just cannot garantee 24 hours for every teacher and in this case it would be definetely not a teacher's fault.

Such benefits as holiday pay are already included in your hourly rate. For confirmation of taxes please call us to know how to receive a document you need.

Another Reply

Dear Boro Lady,

Actually, I have been informed recently by one of the staff on the 3rd floor boro that an off-contract teacher has to work the minimum of 48 hours (2x24) every pay period.

Could you either confirm or contradict this info?

Reply From Boro Lady

Such benefits as holiday pay are already included in your hourly rate. For confirmation of taxes please call us to know how to receive a document you need.


Reply From Teacher

Dear Boro Lady,

As I asked before, where is this stated in our contracts? Sounds like a convenient invention to me. And what about health insurance? Pension payments?

Any concrete answers from BKC likely?

Another Reply from Another BKC Teacher

I am very curious about How you are going to explain this issue. Namely, another curious teacher pointed out to me the fact that whether an "off-contract" teacher brings BKC money or not doesn't relly depend on how many hours he'she works, but, as far as classes are considered, on how many students there are in his class.

Point taken, if a teacher has 5 people in their class, the company doesn't earn the same money out of their service as out of the one teaching, say, 11.

Which only comes to prove that the whole tax tariff is at least as clear as we we are (unsuccessfully) being made to believe.

The Post That BKC Never Replied To

Dear Boro Lady,

Did you know that it is illegal to include all benefits like holiday-pay into an employee's salary? Is anybody in BKC aware of a the thing called the law?

Don't you understand that BKC is still liable for holiday payments for ALL of its teachers, regardless of their status as freelancers?

I'd start answering the questions here if I were you, thank you very much.

A Few Days Later

So? Are you going to respect Russian law or not? Do you want a court case?

In the end, there was only deafening silence from BKC.