Because of this situation, I know for a fact that there is a CHANGE going on to get rid of previously existing 12 month contracts; I know that one can fight it; and I know that if one is a hard-working teacher with some talent one can win. I've also fought and won other battles at other schools over contracts, rent, and attempts to, among other things, eliminate overtime pay for teachers and do free promotion.
To those who are taking issue with me, I say, "enjoy your summer camp jobs."

Unlike yourself, I have a different approach. I look at the entire employment package on offer. I know how much hard graft, or in fact, little as it turns out, I will put in to my job. Overtime? paid or unpaid - I don't give a damn, as I ALWAYS decline it. Jobs on the side? Ditto. If the package is below my expectations, I turn it down. I won't negotiate at all, I'll just look elsewhere. I feel i'm not cheated for the non-demanding jobs I choose to choose. And I don't want to cheat the Chinese. I'm not a cheat nor somebody who will stoop to sharp practice. But if my employer breaks my contract, I'll make him regret it - he'll never forget me!
In my country teachers are on rigid pay scales. Negotiating with employers in the field of edu is a piece of crap, imo. Summer camps, the same. Never done one. Never will.

And if there were many more people doing a quality jobs and standing up for fair compensation, the whole playing field would be better here. Those of you who think it's OK to snip off months of salary, and it's just up to the teacher to accept it or bugger off, are just making things harder for the rest of us by going along with the diminution of English teaching jobs in China and Asia. A country like Thailand has become a very difficult place to find a decent job, for example, because of the constant influx of inferior teachers who have lowered the bar of compensation for performance for everyone else.

Yours is a pipe dream. The Chinese will just hire eastern Europeans and other non-native speakers to cut their employment costs if we try to negotiate. We can't win, generally speaking. If some of us boycott the lower paid jobs, there are plenty other backpackers etc who will fill those vacancies. The Chinese edu system is substandard.

Now for some cheap Chinese food and cheap beer!

The trouble with you is that you're making judgements re how much, or little, money is sufficient for laowai to live well off of in China. You remind me of a fool of a foreigner in Dongbei who said he couldn't survive off of 5,500 RMB/month. He neither smoked nor drank. At lunchtime and dinnertime he consumed cheap school canteen food. Christ knows what he was spending his hard-earned on. Absolute guff he was spouting!