[DonQuigleone]

Originally Posted by Sumeragi

And that's why parent's guidance and consent are necessary for those contracts to be enforceable in the first place. You seem to make it seem the minors had no advice.

And many of those parents give bad advice. Many parents seek to exploit their children. That a parent consents to a contract should have no bearing on the long term viability of a contract. Parents don't always have the best interests of their children at heart.

Their private life is not the business of their workplace because that private life has no bearings on work itself. Is this so difficult to understand?

My point is that the fact that their personal lives has bearings on their work is the problem. Their employers and their fans should mind their own business, and the law should land on the side of the idols. If the business is not sustainable with idols having control over their own personal lives, then the business should be discontinued.

Now I would agree that the agencies can stipulate what their public lives are like. But they have no right to stipulate anyone's private life, because it's private, IE by it's definition it is not their concern, no one should ever see it. If Idols are discreet but get found out by Paparazzi, it should not be the idol suffering the consequences, but the Paparazzi for intruding on the idol's privacy. It is the paparazzi destroying the product, not the idol. If an idol loses sales due to the actions of the paparazzi, then the company should sue the paparazzi for lost earnings. Whether two people visit one another is nobody's business but those two people. The fans, tabloids and production companies have to suck it up and deal with it.

I've seen harsher, but they were on voluntary terms.

Such harsh contracts usually only come about when the employer has unreasonably strong bargaining power, in my experience. Or the person is really passionate about the job.

And what does that have to do with the idol industry again? The work requirements are different.

They are no different. Employers of Engineers do the responsible thing and make sure their engineers are healthy and well cared for, because they are valuable to the company. Idols are the same, and should be treated accordingly. The difference, is that Engineers can walk if they don't like how they're being treated and find work elsewhere. Most idols don't have that luxury.

It's that kind of biased suspicion that we have labor disputes in the first place.

And it's that kind of biased suspicion that keeps employers nice. Before labour laws and trade unions employers didn't give a damn about such drags on profits as "Safety". They'd work you till you died an early death, and then replace you with someone else. Get your arm caught in the mill? Not their problem! Also you can't do your job with one arm, so unfortunately you'll have to be let go, I'm sure you'll be able to feed your 5 children if you send them in your place...