A new legislation that requires tutor matching websites to lower their commission fee was proposed by 10 members of the National Assembly on Sept. 27. Lee Chan-yeol, a member of Bareunmirae Party, is the chief author of the bill and is aiming to protect the rights of tutors to be paid fairly for their work.
The proposed legislation demands a change in laws regarding e-commerce by imposing a limit to the amount of commission tutor matching websites can impose on users of their services. As there are currently no laws regarding this matter, commission fees range greatly on each website and cause users of tutor matching websites to suffer from paying excessively high commission fees, according to Lee.
“The tutor matching website that I frequently use collected 25 percent my first tutoring fee as a commission,” said Lim Eun-seo, a freshman in the College of Arts & Design. “I noticed that those who only tutor once or for a month have to pay 15 percent of the money they earn.”
In the proposed legislation, Lee and nine other members of the National Assembly included an article that restricted tutor matching websites from collecting more than 10 percent of tutoring fees for commission. Lee intends fair competition between tutor matching websites by providing a reasonable pay to tutors who use them.
While many university students look for tutoring jobs through websites, they expressed their concerns about the high commission fee.
“As I am not from Seoul and do not have any acquaintances here, I looked for tutoring jobs through tutor matching websites,” said Kim Si-a, a freshman majoring in English Language & Literature. “However, considering the cost of transportation and commission fee, I decided to give up because I felt nothing much will be left for me to spend.”
Kim shared her thoughts on the newly proposed legislation.
“I believe the proposed motion can work to provide a fair amount of money to those using tutor matching websites, especially young students like me,” Kim said. “If the policy changes, the young will no longer have to give up looking for tutoring jobs due to high commissions.”
The new bill proposed by 10 members of the National Assembly was sent to the Education Committee on Sept. 28. Whether the bill would be sustained or not is yet unknown.
 

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