Job Discussion Forums

[Doglover]

[guest of Japan]

This issue has me really bothered. The internet has enabled businesses to attract far more applicants for jobs as well as customers. They save a fortune in advertising costs and get a direct market to people who have little access to information. When I initually came to Japan with AEON I called the better business bureau in NY to see if there had been any reports on them. Their record was clean, so I came.

Now we're getting a situation where companies are not accountable to anyone. If they don't maintain an office in a recruiting country people won't be able to verify any sort of labor issues. By threatening to sue websites who host opinions of others they are effectively cutting off all negative opinion and are getting free reign to completely exploit people.

You never hear about someone sueing the NY Times about content in an opinion article. The reason is that they can't be successful. No judge in his right mind would rule against an internet forum because the forum makes no money from the negative opinions and does not express those opinions.

If a forum chooses to not allow certain posts because of loss of advertising revenue I can understand that. However I see no reason to back down from the threat of a lawsuit that cannot be won by the agrieved party. The black list that was a sticky was perhaps on thin ice because it appears to be endorced by the website. But if this is a problem then aren't the scam warnings also out of bounds? Is exploitation somehow better than a scam?

[japancube]

Thanks for the informative Jim and Guest. To me the issue just seems to come down to MONEY. When a person's income is threatend as with Dave's, people take measures to insure that there income stays consistent. I can't exactly blame him for that. It's just worrying that in this information age, important threads dissapear. I guess the PM is the best way to go for sure. cube

[lajzar]

So far as I can see, as long as the blacklist reports are true, the only thing these companies can do is withdraw their advertising with consequent loss of revenue to Dave's. However, if an independant website were set up that had no commercial interests, then surely those blacklist reports could be hosted there?

Essentially, as long as the reports were actually true, it would be legally unassailable, and if the site does not derive any advertising revenue from these companies, then they would have no leverage to encourage the site to remove them. I believe some countries that have extremely strong freedom of speech laws (Norway springs to mind) would make it even harder for those companies to object if such a site were hosted there.

So how about it? All those in favour of making a new site to host such blacklists, say aye.

Am I right in thinking that those blacklist reports have actually been saved somewhere?

[PAULH]

[Big John Stud]

This is an interesting thread but can we get back to the PM's question. I would also like to know if there are any past employees of W5 Staff Service that has been taken advantage of? Do they owe anyone unpaid rages? I've already been taken advantage of once so this time, I have to be extra careful. The Labor Board in Japan is a waste of tax payers money!

[wangtesol]

I would be in favour of some sort of blacklist.

It is terrible that ESL Cafe is no longer using Paul H as a moderator.

Sperling writes in EFL-Law.com (the book) that "We need dissemination of the laws and legal situations that teachers must know before going to a foreign country....My forums and EFL-Law will be the leaders - but progress is going to be difficult and take time."

Sperling cannot claim to be a leader in EFL Law, as he calls it, yet dismiss one of the leading advocates of EFL workers rights on the Internet.

[wangtesol]

The more I think about the Paul H Case the more incredulous it seems.

If ESL Cafe removes the Blacklist and dismisses Paul H while Sperling comes out with a book (just 2 months ago) claiming to be the leader in EFL Law, then he has no credibility. In fact, it is obvious behavior of a hypocrit.

Has anyone contacted Paul Robertson, the EFL-Law.com guy, to tell him that his buddy Sperling has dismissed one of the most prominent and prolific labor law educators on the Net? You can email him at

[email protected]

[lajzar]

[JimDunlop2]

I'm not going to remove this thread.... as I really don't care to censor what people have said, but I'm not going to let it continue either.

Since nothing useful has been contributed to this in the past page of posts, I'm locking the thread.

First of all, any business between PaulH and Dave is between them. Discussing it here is inappropriate.

Second, once something is deleted from the forum -- it's gone. Period. Unless someone did a screen capture or copied text to their notepad or something, it's gone.

Third, no one is stopping anyone from starting a blacklist website. I'm sure many teachers and prospective teachers would be glad to see one. Just be aware of the legal hassles you will face though. Whether real or just empty threats, I suspect there is a good reason why no such website currently exists...

Lastly, if you have any further info regarding the company being inquired about, please send a PM to the OP.

Thanks,

JD