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April 24,
2003
Monster.Com
Ethnic Cleansing
on the Web?
by DOKHI FASSIHIAN
On April 24, Monster.com, the world's largest
online job search and career management company, will delete
the word "Iran," along with the names of six other
countries--Burma/Myanmar, Cuba, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, and
Syria--from its standard format for resumes. According to the
Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, the U.S.
government has not encouraged Monster to make this decision and
does not find it necessary.
In addition to the change to the resumes,
individuals and organizations with addresses in these countries
will be dropped from Monster's website. Resumes with addresses
inside Iran or any of the other countries will be taken down,
and employers with an address in any of these countries will
no longer be able to use Monster's hiring services. International
organizations such as the United Nations, non-governmental organizations,
and foreign companies with addresses in these countries will
not be exempt, and will no longer be able to use Monster's employment
services.
In a form letter dated April 18, and
emailed to job seekers with the names of these countries in their
resumes, Monster states:
"The U.S. Department of the Treasury's
Office of Foreign Assets Control, as well as some states, maintain
sanctions which prohibit U.S. companies from conducting certain
business activities with organizations located in or residents
of the following countries... In order for Monster to comply
with applicable U.S. federal and state regulations, we will be
removing the Sanctioned Countries from the site. Your resume
included one (or more) of the Sanctioned Countries. Therefore,
your resume will be altered, removing all Sanctioned Countries
from your resume(s)."
On April 21, Kendra Morley, a Monster
customer service representative explained the policy to the National
Iranian American Council (NIAC): "We are simply taking the
names of these countries off our site. We can't have references
to these particular countries. Our legal Department found it
in Monster's best interest to take those references out."
A Monster.com user in the United States,
who in 1994 received a Bachelor of Science degree from Iran University
of Science Technology, received the April 18 notification. Monster's
customer service department advised him to move that information,
currently under "Education," to the "Other Skills"
section of his resume because that section "is not searchable."
He was also told that Monster decided to take the step as a protective
measure from the U.S. Department of Treasury. After contacting
the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the individual
was informed that no directive or regulation from OFAC required
Monster to take such action.
Founded in 1994 by Monster Chairman Jeff
Taylor, the company describes itself as "the leading global
careers network on the internet." It maintains sites in
22 countries, almost all in Europe, cites millions of job seekers,
over a million job postings, and profiles of 130,000 employers.
"My Monster," a free service
for job seekers, allows individuals to create and post a detailed
resume profile on Monster's website to be searched by employers
worldwide. It requires users to type the contents of already
existing resumes into a standardized Monster format. As a result
of the company's new policy, the names of the specified sanctioned
countries can no longer appear as an official location on Monster
resumes.
According to Monster, the new policy
is not censorship. The company says it will not be scanning resumes
for words and deleting them arbitrarily, rather, the sanctioned
countries will be taken out of Monster's standard drop down format
of countries--this, Monster alleges, is to prevent Iranian employers
and individuals from putting up profiles and listings on Monster's
website.
So, after April 24, Indonesia will be
directly followed by Iraq, Norfolk Island by Northern Mariana
Islands, and Croatia by Cyprus. The seven countries will basically
disappear from the country lists in the "Candidate Information,"
"Education," and "Target Locations" sections
of Monster resumes. In other words, if you happen to live in
Iran, if you studied in Iran, or if you want to live and work
in Iran, Monster will not help you.
So what do you do if at one point you've
lived, studied, or worked in one of these countries? According
to Monster, there are "work arounds." Users can manually
type in the names of these countries in other areas. For example,
they can be listed in "Other Skills" or in the "Experience"
and "Education" sections normally designated for descriptions
of the work or study an individual conducted. Oddly, the only
thing that can't be done is to list the names of these countries
as actual locations.
For employers or job seekers with addresses
in the sanctioned countries, no "work arounds" exist.
A young Iranian living in Iran cannot use Monster to find job
opportunities in the U.S.--or anywhere else in the world for
that matter. Neither can a Dane, a Frenchman, or an Indian seeking
work in one of the sanctioned countries.
So why is Monster isolating seven countries,
and alienating seven ethnic communities from its business activities
and from the global job market? It claims that as a business,
it is required to do so to be in compliance with U.S. regulations.
But OFAC disputed this assertion. Darryl Bailey, an OFAC information
specialist, was adamant that Monster's actions were unrelated
to the sanctions program. "We have nothing to do with that,"
said Bailey. "The Treasury Department is not, I repeat,
NOT advising Monster to do this."
OFAC's compliance department reiterated
Bailey's claim. "This is a false reading of the sanctions
program," a compliance officer said. "Someone can be
denied a job this way. I can assure you of the position of OFAC.
[Profiling and discrimination] is not the intent of the sanctions.
These companies are deviating from their purposes, and I strongly
suggest they confer with legal counsel here before they use the
U.S. government as a bookmark for their own purposes."
Monster's director of legal affairs,
Donna Guilmette, however, assured NIAC that her office was in
contact with OFAC, and that a specialist there, along with outside
counsel, had confirmed that Monster's actions were, indeed, necessary
to be in compliance with the sanctions program. "[Matching
job seekers with companies] was deemed to be a facilitation of
business activity," Guilmette told NIAC. "We are trying
to comply. We are not trying to be discriminatory."
On April 22, NIAC held a conference call
with Guilmette and OFAC Sanctions Monitoring Specialist Zack
Woodyard. Woodyard described Monster's decision to remove residents
of Iran from its website in order to stay in compliance as a
"good idea," but stopped short of stating that the
action was advised or required by OFAC. Woodyard also expressed
that he didn't think Monster should remove Iran from the drop
down box in the "Education" section of its resumes.
"It has no relevance at all if someone got an education
in Iran," Woodyard said.
Guilmette described that as a "technical
glitch" since Monster's format is standardized throughout
its site. She was unable to promise that Monster would find a
way around it due to costs. When asked, however, about citizens
and nationals of other countries living in Iran, Guilmette said
Monster would make every effort to find a way around that issue
as long as the affected person called and described their situation.
This, before Woodyard clarified that the U.S. Code prohibited
any U.S. entity from exporting a good to any person or entity
residing in Iran. Guilmette quickly retracted Monster's offer
to make those exceptions for nationals of other countries.
Monster's move raises many legal and
ethical questions that must be answered in the days to come.
1. Is it ethnic profiling, censorship,
and discrimination to prohibit job seekers from listing Iran
and other countries as locations in the world?
2. Does Monster violate the rights to
information exchange, exempt from sanctions, of residents of
these countries? Since the company draws no revenue from job
seekers, what business transaction is being conducted with individuals
seeking access to international job information? For example,
an Iranian information technology expert living in Iran and seeking
employment in Canada. Or a Spaniard working as a journalist in
Iran and looking for employment in the United States?
3. Finally, what drove Monster to make
this change now? Currently, U.S. companies are allowed to offer
individuals living in Iran employment in the U.S. and sponsor
their work visas. If this transaction is legal under the current
sanction code, how could information exchange that enables Iranian
youth to find potential employers in the U.S. be deemed a violation
of the sanctions? Thus far, no other online employment agencies
(www.careerbuilder.com, www.hotjobs.com) have followed Monster's
lead.
It remains to be seen if Monster's policy,
which analysts deem to be excessive, will remain an exception
or if it will become common practice in Corporate America in
the near future. However one interprets the U.S. sanctions policy,
it wasn't the U.S. government that knocked on Monster's door.
Monster just decided to open it.
Today's
Features
Anthony
Gancarski
When Young Mothers Die in Combat
Chris
Floyd
Desolation Row: Bush's Barbarians Teach
by Example
Marjorie
Cohn
Tax the War Profiteers
William
Lind
The Fourth Generation of Modern War
Dave Marsh
Nina Simone: Freedom Singer
Binoy
Kampmark
Malayasia's America: the War on Iraq
David Vest
Who's Looting Whom?
Standard
Shaefer
Super Imperialism: an Interview with Michael Hudson
Andrew
Rodman
Lawn Poem
Steve
Perry
Bush's War Web Log 4/23
Website
of the Day
Weapons of Mass Destruction in the Middle East
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