Lanzhou Jiaotong University (Photo : Lanzhou Jiaotong University)
On Aug. 22, the Lanzhou Jiaotong University in China apologized to former English teacher Liu Lingli and agreed to pay her back wages. But the act was a tad too late because the previous week, Liu died of complications of ovarian cancer.
It was a pyrrhic victory for the 32-year-old former teacher who was reduced to selling clothes on the street to pay for her medical bills after she was fired by the Lanzhou Jiaotong University for absenteeism, reported the New York Times. The university fired her while Liu was undergoing treatment which is a violation of China’s labor laws.
However, the university initially battled Liu in courts over the wrongful termination lawsuit she filed after she became sick in the summer of 2014, two years after she started to teach English at the institution’s Brown College. By fall, Liu went on leave and requested for extension in early 2015 as well as for the university to continue shouldering her medical insurance.
But the university instead terminated Liu for poor attendance. Initially, the court sided with the sick teacher, but the university appealed. However, in June, the appeal court still sided with Liu.
By the time the school agreed to implement the court decision, Liu had incurred more than $60,000 medical bills which her parents, who earn only about $500 a month, could definitely not afford to pay.
On Monday, the university said it would pay almost $11,000 the dead teacher’s family, which includes $2,200 for her funeral. Brown College’s human resources director, Jiang Xueyun, has been suspended, reported South China Morning Post.
