Managers

This is for you GEOS fanatics that can't get enough of the defunct school:

A JAPANESE-owned English language school has been ordered to pay one of its managers compensation of €30,000 and to increase her salary in line with that of a male counterpart.

The school, trading as GEOS Ireland, was found to have discriminated against Nerea Medrano on a number of grounds, including gender and family status.

Over the past 10 years, LJ has gone from being a website that tried to warn others about the pitfalls of working for GEOS, to documenting the criminal activities that are a part of eikaiwa, large and small schools alike.

Time to blow the cobwebs off this blog and talk about James McCrostie's article in the Japan Times two weeks ago on the General Union's scrap with Gaba.

The General Union says it has established a Gaba Branch and is accusing Gaba of lying when it stated in a financial report that there was no union and that labor relations were good. By all accounts in the article, this should be a slam dunk for the union, until you read this part:

Comedy gold!

Page launched an unfair dismissal claim against GEOS, which comes under the umbrella of the GEOS Corporation founded by Japanese businessman Tsuneo Kusunoki.

But the company responded by claiming that Page "accepted understanding of the 'Japanese way' of doing business". They went on to say he was used to Kusunoki "ranting", "berating" and "humiliating" people "so this was nothing new".

Japan Today has started a regular series on the state of the language school industry, in particular eikaiwa, written by Dean Rogers, president and CEO of Dean Morgan Co Ltd, the school that sounds like an investment company.

Let's start an open thread for kicks. I won't call it an End of GEOS thread, but if you have have something to add, comment on it here.

A quick blurb in the newspaper, the Mainichi reports that the three men arrested on suspicion of confining Sahashi in his hotel room have been released.

Apparently the police don't have much of a case on them. At any rate, the thugs caught with Sahashi are probably thinking, "Mission accomplished." They delivered their message.

Mainichi article

Today was the final day of Sahashi's trial, and in their closing statement, the prosecution asked that Sahashi be sentenced to five years in jail stating that his actions caused severe losses to students and employees, and that his taking money from the shayukai fund was no grounds for leniency. The defense reasserted that Sahashi is innocent and that he was trying to save the company from bankruptcy.

In his final statement, Sahashi expressed his desire to do as much as he can to repay the money taken from the fund. The judge will render his decision on August 26.

Day 6 of Sahashi's trial was today (funny, the papers seemed to have skipped reporting on the 4th and 5th sessions), and the notion that he might get off with a light sentence seems to have gained some ground. According to the Asahi shimbun, the judge threw out 2 depositions given by the assistant manager during the investigation in which he stated that Sahashi had instructed him to use money from the shayukai employee's fund.

Update on the Sahashi trial today. According to the Sankei shimbun, Sahashi testified that he didn't know how much money was in the shayukai employee's fund and didn't remember checking the balance himself. He also denied that taking money from the fund was his idea.