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".
Tuesday's Lifeline column in The Japan Times featured a situation that illustrated just how fly-by-night teaching English in Japan can be:
Reader TS writes: "I return to the U.S. next week and I was supposed to receive my final pay check from a really bad ALT company . . . last week, but did not receive payment. I've called them but the secretaries say that the people in charge are not in the office. I called my direct contact and he has yet to call me back.
When Nova went bankrupt in 2007, two central themes of the collapse were the large pre-payment of lesson fees and the inability of Nova to provide refunds. The fallout was so large, the media dubbed Nova's collapse as the largest consumer wipe-out since the end of the Pacific War.
Add GEOS to the list of eikaiwas that have gone bankrupt. GEOS filed for bankruptcy today, temporarily closing its schools until the 23rd when G.communication, the company that picked up the scraps when NOVA went bankrupt in 2007, will take over part of GEOS's business.
Public schools here [Kashiwa, Chiba] have been unable to start their native speaker-taught English classes this school year after the city's board of education was accused of violating labor laws with foreign language teachers.
China's Education Ministry on Sunday warned students considering studying overseas against Australian schools run by the GEOS group after more than 40 Chinese students were left stranded with the group's collapse.
More than 2,300 students in GEOS group schools across Australia were affected after the college closures. The schools were scattered across Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Cairns.
It took the Consumer Affairs Agency long enough. From the Yomiuri Shimbun:
The Consumer Affairs Agency and the Tokyo metropolitan government on Thursday ordered a Tokyo-based English-language conversation school chain operator to suspend operations due to its coercive method of selling its services to university students and others.
