I say it's not cool and you shouldn't tolerate it!

Your contract if it is like those I've had in three separate schools including private and public schools already contains a stipulation about a fine if you leave without giving proper notice. So, there's no need to withhold from your salary. This also raised the very unpleasant possibility that at some point they may let you go for trumped up reasons and thus also not reimburse you for the money they owe you.

I strongly disagree with the sentiment that if you singed a contract it is necessarily legal!

This flawed logic is used for all manner or privately owned schools in China to exploit Chinese teachers. Private schools may hold a Chinese teacher's documents and identification, and give a contract saying they will have to pay 50,000 Yuan if they quit without fulfilling their contracts. This is a crock-load of sh!t. China has labor laws!

Individual contracts that business men conjure in their wet dreams have NOTHING to do with the law. You can sign a contract that says you are not entitled to your salary if you are one minute late, and that you will give your first born if you miss a day, but it's NOT legally binding. It's an illegal contract. Sadly, most people fall for this.

There are commonly abused laws such as that a teacher in a initial probationary period should get no less than 80% (if my memory serves me) or an established teacher, and there is a limit to the length of probationary periods. Yet, A-hole bosses will give Chinese teachers half the salary while they are on probation, or no salary, and extend that period for up to a year. I've heard of such bosses doing this to Chinese teachers working for foreign owned private English schools in China.

I say if you can scrape together enough money to disentangle yourself from whatever employer is trying to garnish your salary (probably to invest the money or otherwise build interest on it), do it. Let them eat the dust of your trail. Go somewhere else and if you get the same crap keep on going.

Quite possible, if you work for a public institution, the withholding of any of your salary is a violation of your contract, in which case you can leave without paying any fine.

And as another poster said, if someone did a midnight run, well, there's a good chance there was a good reason they needed to do that, and it might have been the institution in question.

You can withhold your teaching until you withheld salary is returned.

You may not get on well with your employer if you demand to have all of your salary, but, the alternative is to get along through giving in and getting screwed.