Working papers/striking workers

So, while I’m writing this – sitting in my hotel room in Paris, taking a break from sightseeing and job-hunting – French transit workers are on strike, marching in the streets in protest of job cuts, economic turmoil, the end of days, et al.

And here I am trying to get a job in their city. Hoo … rah.

Rest assured I haven’t seen much chaos today outside of hordes of tourists and people enjoying the nice spring weather. I took the metro all day and it ran fine. I can’t recognize the streets shown on CNN International well enough to find the action, though. Bummer. I was hoping to take some pictures of the protest marches and submit them to a few papers back home, maybe make enough to pay for a few nights in my hotel room. Riiiiigght.

But the fact that people in France are on strike (though not an uncommon thing to happen here), does put some nice, ominous background music to my heartwarming story of hopping a flight to Paris from Prague to search for a job teaching English, all wide-eyed and bushy tailed and naive.

Alas, I need working papers.

That’s all I’ve been hearing lately. If you want to work in Paris, or anywhere in France for that matter, you need French working papers. From what I’ve been told, I’d have needed to get that sorted out before I even left the states, back when I still wasn’t sure if I wanted to stay in Prague after the course or go somewhere else.

Now, it seems that if I want a job in Paris, I need to return to the U.S., file for French working papers (and possibly a long-term visa, too – tourist visas are only three months), then come back to Paris and look for a job. Never mind that France and most Westernized European countries only want to hire EU citizens on top of that.

Hoo … rah.

Basically, this would work out if I turn back time, get born into a British family and start applying for French working papers before I begin grade school.

Part of this is my own fault for not doing enough research on France and its immigrant work laws (which are even more ridiculously stringent than other European countries). The other problem is that, for all the great things Oxford TEFL provided for me, accurate, updated, American-catered information about job searches was not one of them. They mostly knew how to get jobs as Brits.

I went in believing I could get a job anywhere once the program was done and I achieved certification. And to a large extent, that’s true. I can go nearly anywhere to get a job, easy. It’s just the places that are easiest (Eastern Europe, most Asian countries and parts of South America) are not where I’d particularly like to be. In places like Spain, Italy, Germany, Greece and, yes, France, I’d end up working illegally or not at all.

If a language school is willing to sponsor you for a work visa, you’re pretty much set. Your tourist visa could run out, but as long as you are in the process of acquiring a work visa, you can stay in Europe legally.

Some language schools are willing to hire you, but they’re not willing to go through the process of sponsoring you for a work visa, mainly because it’s a lot of paperwork, time and money. That and they have to do a good job proving why no one else in Europe could do this job better than you.

I’m not particularly interested in working illegally. Even for the chance to be in a place like Paris, amazing and right-up-my-alley as it is. Our teachers at Oxford tend to think illegal teachers are becoming the norm in many major European cities where competition is tough and the market is saturated. They assured us English teachers without proper work visas are not atop the list of problems customs officials are tackling.

And with everything the Schengen laws have done to make Europe more streamlined from country to country, they’ve also made it easier for someone with an expired tourist visa to move around within the EU – they’ve eliminated most border control posts across the continent. When I was here in early 2005, we got our passports stamped crossing every country border by train and by plane. Now, I’ve traveled by plane from Munich to Prague and Prague to Paris and by train from Prague to Vienna and Bratislava without getting my passport checked once other than to see if the photo matches my face.

The point is, as one of my teachers at Oxford noted, I’d have to be extremely unlucky to get in trouble. That and if I try to leave Europe. Yeah, the other aspect of the law is that once my three-month tourist visa is up, I have to leave Europe for three months before I could come back.

Hoo ... rah No. 3.

So, with that lengthy explanation out of the way, what does this all mean for me? As of now, I think I'm sticking around Paris for the next few days, at least until the middle of next week. See how many more times I get the shaft for not having working papers, and if nothing fantastic comes of it, I'll saunter off back to Prague.

At least in Prague, schools really, really want you and they're willing to help with the work visas. The other plus is that it's, y'know, Prague — really gorgeous city, cheap and I already know my way around a bit (plus some friends from school are still there).

And at least I get to see Paris. Yes, we'll always have Paris.