Huffington Post’s Jordan Howard reports: http://j.mp/oklPsI
Monster.com Says It Won’t Ban Third-Party Ads That Discourage Job Applications From The Unemployed
WASHINGTON — The parent company for the employment website Monster.com, Monster Worldwide Inc., is taking action to get the progressive advocacy group USAction to stop its online campaign aimed at companies whose job postings discourage the unemployed from applying.
In July, USAction began circulating an online petition imploring employment websites such as Monster.com and Careerbuilder.com to reject ads from third-party employers that require applicants to be “currently employed.” As employment websites, Monster and Careerbuilder don’t actually post the ads, but do allow them to be up on the site.
USAction began collecting signatures online — it now has about 26,000 — and put a petition letter on the progressive website Dailykos.com. The group also launched an ad campaign on Facebook.
Then late last Friday, USAction received a “cease and desist” letter from Monster.com claiming the information in the campaign is false, misleading and defamatory. “Monster.com does not engage in any discrimination in hiring,” the letter said. “Monster.com is the media for third-party employers that post their jobs directly onto the monster.com website without input or editorial contribution from Monster.”
USAction spokesman David Elliot said USAction would not cease nor desist.
“Saying they don’t discriminate against the unemployed in hiring is kind of a technicality without a moral distinction,” he told The Huffington Post. “They may not, themselves, discriminate in terms of the people they hire at Monster.com, but they’re still running these ads. So we’re going to keep continuing, we’re not going to cease and desist when it comes to telling the world about this unfair and outrageous practice, a practice that should in fact be illegal.”