Chapter 404: Who Says This Isn't Illegal?

Zhou Yi himself did not know why, but his views on many things seemed a bit too extreme.

Or rather, when a portion of other people felt something was perfectly normal, he felt it was not.

For example, right now, some reports have appeared online saying that a company in Hannan Province called Xilai Company posted a recruitment notice on Lianzhi.

And then, someone applied on Lianzhi.

Anyone who has applied for jobs online before knows that in cases of submitting resumes online, the other party's HR specialist will conduct a review, and this review has a specific timeframe.

Then they will provide a result to see if you are suitable for the position; if not, they need to provide a reason.

So, they provided a reason.

Reason for unsuitability: Handong person.

Then, for some reason, this matter was exposed online.

It just didn't cause much of a stir; after all, not everything can make it to the trending topics.

As the saying goes, "There is nothing new under the sun"; there is too much news these days, truly too much.

Although it attracted the attention of some people, the evaluations were somewhat polarized.

Some people think this is regional discrimination and such a company doesn't deserve to be open at all.

However, this kind of relatively extreme rhetoric was quickly refuted.

"Although it does feel a bit like regional discrimination, setting that aside, did the company do anything wrong? Did they break the law?"

"Keyboard Warriors these days want to control everything under the sun; do they even have to control who others want to hire?"

"Exactly, it doesn't seem to be illegal. I flipped through the Labor Law and didn't find any issues. They didn't even sign a contract; no, wait, the two parties didn't even meet, they just rejected them."

The viewpoint of this group of people is also very simple: wanting to hire certain people, deciding who to hire, and refusing to hire certain people is the company's freedom.

You can't say that a company can't even decide who it wants to hire!

There were also some netizens who fancy themselves as Legal Persons who came out to start analyzing.

"Even looking at it from the Civil Code, this recruitment notice is just an Offer Invitation, how could it possibly involve the law? It's not like there's anyone who doesn't even know what an Offer Invitation is, right? Surely not, surely not?"

Here we must talk about what an offer is and what an Offer Invitation is; perhaps to an outsider, this seems a bit baffling—why is there a need to distinguish between them?

But in fact, there is a great need to distinguish!

It's very simple: an offer has legal effect, while an Offer Invitation has no legal effect.

What are an offer and an Offer Invitation? The former refers to an expression of intent by someone wanting to conclude a contract with another, while the latter refers to an expression of intent hoping for others to issue an offer to oneself.

It sounds very troublesome; it's just signing a contract, and yet there's talk of offers and Offer Invitations.

Professionals don't need to memorize those cumbersome legal interpretations; one only needs to remember the examples.

After all, Case Interpretation is the simplest and most intuitive method.

Zhang San says to Li Si, "Hey Li Si, that watch of yours looks very beautiful, can you sell it to me for one yuan?"

This is called an offer; it represents an expression of intent to conclude a contract and has legal effect.

If you agreed to buy it for one yuan, but then the other party is all prepared and you don't buy it, that violates the principle of good faith, and you would actually need to bear Liability for Breach of Contract.

If, because the other party has already prepared, your violation leads to damages, then you need to bear Damages.

And the latter: Zhang San says to Li Si, "The watch I'm wearing is quite beautiful, do you want to buy it?"

This is called an Offer Invitation; even if you go back on your word later, there is no legal liability.

Things like recruitment advertisements, as well as commercial advertisements, etc., aimed at unspecified groups of people, all belong to Offer Invitations.

Therefore, based on this, this kind of discriminatory behavior by the company does not count as Breach of Contract, and there is no legal liability.

Zhou Yi finished reading the article; after all, he is a half-baked expert, and he really has nothing to say in this regard.

After all, there doesn't seem to be any problem; what kind of people a company wants to hire is their own freedom.

You can say there is the Labor Law when firing a Laborer, but when it comes to hiring, you can't really say that.

Especially when he saw the company's response, saying it was because they wrote it wrong when leaving the message, and they didn't intend to write it that way.

They apologized to everyone.

In this situation, Zhou Mouren had nothing to say; for one, it had nothing to do with him, and for another, they didn't seem to be breaking the law.

But after putting down his phone, Zhou Yi felt unhappy again.

He is now the boss of Tengda, so even when recruiting, he must abide by the law.

But back when he was looking for work, and including the comments many Employees make after joining a company now, there is the phenomenon of fake recruitment.

This phenomenon is most outrageous in online recruitment advertisements!

When you look online, they will tell you that our salary starts at 10k, not including the five social insurances and one housing fund.

Of course you are happy when you see that; ten thousand yuan, not including the five social insurances and one housing fund—this compensation is attractive enough for a young person who hasn't graduated long ago.

As a result, when you go to the interview full of excitement, you find that the promised 10k salary has directly turned into 5k, or even outrageous operations like turning it into a 3k base salary.

They are even very righteous about it: "Why don't you go pee and look at your reflection to see if you have the level to earn this salary? You don't even have this bit of ability and you dare to ask for so much?"

And base salary plus performance—it seems there's no problem, but if you wrote three thousand to ten thousand at the very beginning, then any Laborer with a bit of experience can see through it.

Back when Zhou Yi first started looking for work, he was taught that if you encounter such a large gap between the starting salary and the maximum salary in a recruitment advertisement, absolutely do not go!

Because this maximum salary is just for you to look at.

Except for special industries like sales.

As a result, now, they don't even pretend anymore; they just tell you, "I am indeed lying to you, as long as I can trick you into coming."

Because of this, he feels that many companies currently in the market have all sorts of shady operations, but according to online analysis, it seems there is no problem.

But is there really no problem?

Zhou Yi felt he could chat with Lawyer Fang to see what his views were.

This is not a specific consultation, but a chat about his views on the matter, so naturally, there is no need to pay.

It was under these circumstances that Director Xu in Modu was demoted.

When the heat of public opinion is low, even if there really is an issue, it won't count as an issue.

But when the heat of public opinion is high, even a small matter can be used to find a reason for disciplinary action, let alone the fact that he, Xu Zhuren, really does have an issue.

Good grief, the Court has already ruled that you must publicly apologize on their campus forum, yet you act like this—do you think we can't see through it?

Contempt of court—this matter can be big or small!

Because in real society, there are too many people who don't take court judgments seriously, mainly referring to civil judgments.

For example, owing money and not paying it back; I've already prepared to be a deadbeat, so what am I afraid of? Transferring assets, at worst I'll just go in and stay for a few days each year. What else can you do to me? You can't kill me, can you?

That's just a natural person; when a Company wants to welsh on a debt, it's even simpler: just file for bankruptcy liquidation. As for how much you can get, does that have anything to do with me, the actual controller?

People take it for granted that as long as the Court wants to do something, other institutions will unconditionally cooperate. This is an ideal state; the reality is that the Court cannot just do whatever it wants.

However, once public opinion ferments, the situation is different.

You, a dignified branch bank, were already outrageous to intentionally refuse to correct the credit report, and now that the Court has ruled, you are still being so snide and not executing it properly—who are you putting on a show for?

Especially with the Supreme People's Court; what is this case? It is among the first batch of new guiding cases after the start of this year, and yet you pull such a stunt?

Needless to say, under the storm, let alone a Xu Zhuren, the vast Netizens have already started posting to dig deep into the "protective umbrella" behind him!

Then Xu Zhuren naturally cannot continue in his position.

Digging deeper, those above Xu Zhuren are going to be in trouble.

The Netizens are truly enjoying the drama, because before this, no one could have imagined that a matter internal to a bank like credit reporting would involve the Right of Reputation.

That compensation made many people envious, so soon, the People's Bank of China issued a new notice, requiring financial institutions everywhere to carry out self-inspections, mandating the "timely, rapid, and accurate" submission of credit data.

Of course, since the atmosphere has reached this point, it wouldn't be reasonable for the "father" not to step out and give a couple of slaps, right?

Consequently, the corresponding penalty against Feiyue Bank has come down: a fine of 50,000 yuan!

After this incident, some financial institutions that were not very attentive to correcting erroneous credit reports began self-inspections, because quite a few "professionals" have already set their sights on this cake.

Why? Do you think many online lending and small loan companies now can report your information to the credit bureau, or threaten you at every turn about reporting you to the credit bureau?

It's very simple: many of these small loan companies actually don't have licenses; they are all affiliated with some local banks or other financial institutions.

Because of this, this part of the credit situation is actually not that rigorous.

If everyone starts getting serious about this, they might really end up in big trouble.

…………

It was another bright afternoon; the weather was already getting a bit hot, and it was almost summer again.

As usual, Zhou Yi, Lawyer Fang, and Zhou Xinran were sitting in a coffee shop, chatting about some very "criminal" matters.

Then they talked about the kind of situation Zhou Yi had encountered before.

He just wanted to know one thing: in the face of such discrimination during recruitment, is there really no way for a Laborer to do anything?

Public opinion is very powerful, but it's impossible for every single matter to have heat.

And as everyone knows, public opinion without heat is no different from toilet paper.

Lawyer Fang started drinking coffee while listening, and couldn't help but laugh out loud when he heard Zhou Yi mention things like "Civil Code" and "offer."

"It's not funny, Lawyer Fang, why are you laughing at me?"

Lawyer Fang didn't speak, and Zhou Xinran beside him also laughed.

Only when she saw that the look in a certain handsome guy's eyes wasn't quite right did Zhou Xinran hurriedly explain: "Zhou Yi, it's not that I'm laughing at you, but that your understanding has a problem. Since you know that going the route of an Offer Invitation won't work for this matter, why must you insist on taking this path?"

A brilliant Lawyer never takes a path that is blocked.

Just as Lawyer Fang once said, among the 469 crimes in the Criminal Law, there is always one that fits.

Civil acts are naturally the same.

Zhou Mouren naturally couldn't say that he saw this on the internet, so he could only sit there without speaking.

Lawyer Fang finally opened his mouth and said: "You, we just finished a Tort Lawsuit, and you've already forgotten? Let me ask you, regarding this kind of employment discrimination, would you say that the Company committed a tort?"

"If the contract section of the Civil Code doesn't work, we can continue with the tort section!"

A tort? Zhou Yi felt like he had ignored the issue of torts again.

But, not hiring people from Handong—what kind of right does that infringe upon?

He didn't know, because there are too many civil rights, and applying them is always a bit unexpected.

Just like how he previously didn't know that one could sue for torts based on the Right to Know.

"Zhou Yi, you are also a Company boss now, so do you know that there is a civil right called the Right to Equal Employment!"

Among civil rights, this right seems less common, but being uncommon does not mean it doesn't exist.

Our Laborers possess the right to equal employment!

But one point needs to be emphasized: the right to equality does not represent sameness; that is to say, if a position has special requirements, then equality must be reflected within those special requirements.

"A Company naturally has the duty of free recruitment, but this absolutely does not mean they can recruit however they want and reject whoever they want!" Lawyer Fang said in a deep voice.

Then is this very unfair to those who run companies?

Naturally, it is, because there is no absolute freedom in this world. If you run a company and say you want to reject people however you want, that certainly won't do!

You are still bringing these up here...

You're joking, right? By now, there shouldn't be anyone who still doesn't understand the essence of the law, right? Surely not?

"So, who says this isn't illegal?"

Zhou Yi felt a bit strange hearing this and said: "Then, Lawyer Fang, according to what you said, does that mean as long as someone is rejected for a certain reason, one can say it infringes upon the Right to Equal Employment?"

To put it simply, the current 35-year-old threshold—many companies state directly in their recruitment that they want people under 35. If understood this way, when someone over 35 goes and is rejected, it could all be considered a tort.

But this feels like something is wrong somewhere; after all, the current Public Servant exams all require people to be under 35. You can't say that this is also employment discrimination...

"That's certainly not it. The Right to Equal Employment we are talking about is not understood so simply..." Lawyer Fang smiled and shook his head: "This factor of rejection must at the very least be related to the inherent requirements of the job!"

Lawyer Fang began his explanation.

"Inherent requirements of the job"—this is a relatively vague concept. What are the inherent requirements of a job? For example, education, certificates, work experience, professional qualifications, etc. —these are called the inherent requirements of the job!

Because these are all closely related to the work.

Whereas things like place of origin, gender, ethnicity, and religion are unrelated to the inherent requirements of the work, so you can reject this person because their work experience is not rich, but you cannot reject them because this person is from Handong, it is just that simple!