Dude, Where’s My Money?

I am ready to leave for work. Prepared for class, packed-up with my lecture on the anti-feminist intonations in a British novel of the eighteenth century, I’m about to leave but the time-bomb in my head has finally been triggered. I am frustrated. I am angry. I even have the impulse to kill a few someones. I have not been paid for the past three months- no it is not my tenant, I don’t have a tenant, it’s the people who have employed me, people I have been working for for the past three months, investing my time, brains and energy over them. I don’t even know if they will ever pay. When I enquire about it, they slickly change the topic- they have a knack for escaping. They seem to be good at it, warding off creditors. I am going to talk again today but I know they will do the same. The fact that they are spokes-people of a ‘so-called’ prestigious institution is another infuriating bit in the matter.

So well, I went to work. I had determined that I will raise the issue of my salary in the faculty meeting. But guess what. The Chairperson had the guts to ask us unsalaried people to pool in for some equipment she wanted to buy for the department. I got rightfully ticked off at that and said, ‘how can one contribute money when she hasn’t been paid?’ and he shrewdly ignored my rejoinder. The faculty meeting went on with people munching on samosas and biscuits and filling themselves up with tea, assuming a sober air about everything, somewhat intellectual. At the end of the meeting I raised my voice again but he chose not to notice, let alone respond to it. some other people who like myself had not been paid perhaps chose not to support me and they let me know that by keeping quiet about the matter.

I came home. I bursted out on my poor father who had nothing to do with all this. I told him I was going to change my line of profession, put away my humanities degree, get a business education and just work in some sort of MNC- that remaining in the education sector was just not worth it. We had a rigorous argument regarding the whole issue and I decided to see the chairperson in his office. Surprisingly, he acted all sweet about it and said he could help me with a loan if I wanted that but I didn’t want that. I wanted to be paid for what I had been doing and so I told him. He seemed to be very understanding; said ‘I completely understaaannnd..’, which added to my frustration and I saw that moment that I too lived by slogans and that I better change. He said, ‘only the first cheque takes time, beta, agay ke tou you get as a matter of course’. But something told me it was not much more than an ugly scam and I confirmed the truth of it from people who had been in my position earlier and it was true. He would not tell me the truth because he did not want many of us teachers to leave. but he wouldn’t do anything to make us stay either and I have a very good idea that he could do a whole lot. I personally have lost all motivation to work in that place after the treatment that I have received there. The attachment that I had nurtured for it during my student life there has entirely been washed away and replaced with hate.

Now I’m applying to other places, so I can leave this institution(believe me no self-respecting individual would want to go through this frustration and uncertainty all over again) which according to my perspective shamelessly exploits its own people by not paying them for an indefinite period of time, by keeping them in dark about when they will actually be paid, by pressurizing unpaid employees into volunteering, by expecting them to pitch in into projects not only without ever recognizing them but also without having to pay them and being complacent about it. What bothers me most is that do the so-called prestigious institutions have the right to treat some of its employees like crap?

Is there any accountability? What sort of action should be taken to stop this exploitative behaviour? And what are the legal provisions in this regard?