Amen, brethren!

I would add "Fear" to the list. A lot of teachers are a bit afraid of the owners...and maybe not entirely without justification. They fear everything from being unable to find future employment, to difficulties in leaving the country again, to outright physical injury in some back alley somewhere.

It's a card not all schools will refure to play. I've heard a few accounts of dark hints given about what can happen to teachers who don't "play ball" with the schools. I personally have had schools threaten to cancel my Residence Permit...which I knew was a bluff because I had my RP safely in my own possession, rendering it impossible for the school to cancel it.

Of course, in reality there isn't all that much bad stuff that a school can do to you...they can inconvenience you but they can't really hurt you much. They have little bearing on your next job. They can't make you a prisoner of the country and not let you go home. Denying you a release letter is generally illegal and can usually be easily sidestepped with a quick trip to Hong Kong.

Hell, even taking you out and having you whacked is going to call down more hassle upon their heads than they'll ever seriously want to challenge.

And, words perhaps we should all have tattooed onto our foreheads or something: "EFL Teaching is a Seller's Market (at least in East Asia)." What that means is that for every job you have, there will be 500 out there who'd love to have you working there. And what THAT means is there ain't a goddam thing to ever fear about losing a job here. Especially not a bad one.

As for the others, Yingwen, I'm as mystified as you are. How people can NOT stand up for themselves is simply beyond my ability to imagine. I agree...a lot of the problems in this business come from the behavior of those who have gone before us.