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Teacher sues Eucon, alleging labor violation
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Posted on Feb 24 2021
A former teacher at Eucon International School has filed a complaint against the school, alleging breach of contract and other allegations of labor violations.
Yantao Xia filed a suit against Eucon with the U.S. District Court for the NMI, alleging that Eucon required him to pay fees in exchange for sponsoring his CW-1 visa.
Xia said he was told to contact a person called “Rapture” for processing his documents. He believed that Rapture acted as an agent of Eucon.
On or about Aug. 24, 2018, Rapture provided Xia with an agreement with an entity called “CWM Trust, LLC” that would require Xia to pay $2,350 for visa processing, the lawsuit stated.
According to the lawsuit, CWM Trust LLC was operated at the same address as Eucon and by Eucon’s own employees or agents and was controlled by Eucon and was an alter ego of Eucon.
Rapture required Xia to pay the $2,350 fee at the direction of Kan Christian Wei.
Xia alleged that the visa processing was entirely done by persons controlled by Eucon or Eucon’s agents.
Xia is also suing Eucon for changing his job title following the expiration of his first contract to avoid paying him the prevailing wage.
Xia’s first employment contract was from Oct. 1 2018, to Sept. 30, 2019. He arrived on Saipan on Jan. 25, 2019, under a CW1 visa sponsored by Eucon. Xia said that for the first two months at Eucon, he taught one Algebra II class, then additional workload was given to him before the summer of 2019, including assisting the librarian.
When the term of his first employment contract was to expire, Xia said Eucon made him sign a new employment contract that avoided making the school pay him the prevailing wage. He said Eucon also changed his job title to “library assistant” with a wage rate of $9.64.
But Eucon continued to make him teach classes with a rate substantially lower than the new prevailing wage and survey, the lawsuit stated.
According to Xia he was severely underpaid, and that from January 2019 to April 2020 he was paid a total of $8,657.44 only.
