Uber Japan referred to prosecutors over hiring of overstayers

Uber Cheats

Like most other business looking for cheap or ZERO PAY labor, Uber will hire who ever they can get so they don't have to pay minimum wages, or Insurance and Taxes.

Common practice by shady businesses.

Pot calling the kettle black, j Inc’s been doing it for decades!

Who cares, they probably work harder than 99 percent of Japanese delivery workers.

Overstay? Then, get deported.

Keeping track of your visa status isn't exactly rocket science, you know.

Uber Eats is at fault as well however.

Actually, I could care less because I don't use them.

Hilarious!

Skylark delivery guy was stopped just 2 days ago by the police infront of the house nextdoor.

He was driving one of the 3 wheel motorbikes, no driver's license no Alien registration card.

The police told the neighbour that it was the 5th time in as many days he had this same situation.

I wonder if we will hear about that in the news? I am betting we won't afterall it is and old Japanese company.

The naive phantasies of delivery robots and drones are dreamed out. This aging and soon dead economy will need every helping hand from kids over reactivated seniors up to illegal overstayers, and that just to keep the downturn speed low.

A Vietnamese man hired by the company registered on the Uber Eats website with a false identity, using someone else's residence card that he got through an online broker, according to the police

How were they to know it was a false ID and that he was using someone else's residence card? Usually they look at the picture, the expiration date and if it all checks out, its all good in the hood!

@Boku Dayo

I did any work I could find to support my children as a single father.

I worked construction at one point for a large Japan construction company.

Of the group I was working with there were 2 Japanese supervisors 10 workers all foreigners and only I had a valid Visa.

And I guarantee everyone here knows this construction company.

There is large number of overstayers with status ex-trainees that become overstayers along with students. That's happened for years.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/10/31/national/record-5803-foreign-trainees-went-awol-japan-last-year/

Perhaps because uber does everything online, yes there is flaw with that. 

Is uber the only one who hire these people? No, lot of manufacturers that does everything physically and require for these workers to show up everyday they do this.

Car manufacturers and its supplier, hire overstayers.

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/japan-subaru/

Food factory

http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/13732676

Also Constructions

 worked construction at one point for a large Japan construction company.

Of the group I was working with there were 2 Japanese supervisors 10 workers all foreigners and only I had a valid Visa.

And I guarantee everyone here knows this construction company.

However so far Uber that get this kind of treatment, not those car manufacturers, food factory and construction. Of course many others.

I registered with Uber eats a few years ago when I was in between jobs. Thought it couldn’t hurt. I went to their office in Tokyo, they checked my ID, passport, bankbook, everything. Seemed legit. I never actually ended up doing any work for them because it seemed like too much trouble for the minimal pay. But they check and double check foreigners visa status. Not sure what happened in this instance

And I guarantee everyone here knows this construction company.

Thanks for leaving a comment.

All I hear though is your boasting. Not just here, but in a lot of other JT posts.

Mods, please remove this comment as it's off-topic.

@Boku Dayo

I don't know if you even understand bthe meaning of "boasting".

It seems what upsets you is the fact 100% Japanese companies violate the same laws all the time and my pointing this out isn't to your liking!

I don't know if you even understand bthe meaning of "boasting".

Excessively proud and self-satisfied talk about one's achievements, possessions, or abilities.

Off-topic, Mods.

@Boku Dayo

If saying I was a broke desperate single father doing any dirty jobs to survive is.

Excessively proud and self-satisfied talk about one's achievements, possessions, or abilities.

You have a strange view on achievements, etc.. I call it basic survival.

How about referring them to prosecutors for driving like madmen on the sidewalks and blatantly ignoring traffic signals?

It's difficult to survive for some people, let's not make it harder for them.

A more approachable immigration policy, transparent and fair will help much more than trowing this little workers to jail.

Uber. Uber Eats. A company that should be kicked to the curb. By any standards exploitive and wedded to a queer libertarian 'philosophy' that disregards the common good and treats its employs like serfs. It has a high churn employee base it continually repopulates (that's their lingo and purposefully obfuscates it exploitive intent). It practices unethical and illegal corporate 'behaviors'.

Uber is one of the odious companies advancing the nonsensical 'gig economy' which is modelled on avoiding taxes, employee benefits (they don't have employees, they have independent contractors), minimum wage, vacation pay, sick leave and impinges on local, independently owned businesses undermining the local economy. The profits are swept away to banks in a foreign land. Interestingly, Uber is banned from the Cayman Islands

Uber has destroyed the taxicab business, which is regulated, licensed and has actual employees. A once 100 billion dollar global industry. Structural industry characteristics determined a set of strictures to insure profitability in the taxicab industry. Uber has ignored those by underselling the costs and operating at a loss. All the while displacing a viable business model. So-called disruptive economics, alongside ignoring regulatory machinations, which are necessary to profit. In order to survive, after destroying the taxicab business, it will have to increase costs on par with the fees typical to the taxi business.  Uber's current losses are a reflection of the deep structural deficiencies in ride-hail industry economics. 

By pricing its services 30% or more below comparable taxi fares and then retaining 25% of gross bookings for itself, Uber has squeezed the revenues available to compensate drivers, who are ultimately responsible for providing the labor, equipment, maintenance, insurance and fuel to serve consumers. There is nothing in Uber’s business model that promises to reduce the factor costs of its ridesharing service, nor are there inherent economies of scale that would lower unit operating costs with continued growth.

Their intent is to garner profit for its owners and screw the contract 'employees', who are dispensable & replaceable. These business model dynamics underscore the bleak earnings outlook for Uber drivers.

Same goes for Uber Eats. It should be banned from Japan.

What many don't seem to know or perhaps understand.

There are many people now theoretically working illegally due to the covid situation.

They did not overstay they just lost their employment.

I know English language teachers that lost their jobs as their schools closed.

I know IT engineers in similar situations.

Not all have PR, spouse visa or Long term visa.

So if the teachers cannot find another teaching job or the IT engineers cannot find another IT related job.

They are not permitted to work for Uber, a convenience store, construction, etc ..

But in many cases just packing up and leaving is not as simple as it seems.

One person I know did just that he left. But he could barely afford the plane ticket home and the quarantine cost once he got back to his country.

So he slipped out on his landlord not giving notice or paying the 3 months penalty for breaking his lease.

That was out of desperation and not to violate Japanese laws by working illegally.

But now you can be assured the landlord and fudosun will now avoid dealing with foreigners in the future!

By pricing its services 30% or more below comparable taxi fares and then retaining 25% of gross bookings for itself, ...

In most US markets, Uber keeps far more than 25% of the gross bookings (customer fares). If it was limited to 25%, most drivers would be cool with that. But, it's more like 40-50%, which should be against the law.

As for their Eats business, in the US, they take 30% commission from the restaurants, in addition to the service/delivery fees they charge the customers. And, they give the delivery person a small portion of the delivery fee, leaving the tip/gratuity as an important part of the drivers' income.

I would love to find out how they pay their delivery people in Japan, where tipping is virtually unheard of. (I have tipped my Uber Eats Japan drivers well, the few times I've used them.)

Why would a company like UBER EATS, ever hire a gaijin to deliver food?

The operator of the food delivery service changed from Uber Japan to Uber Eats Japan earlier this year.

I have noticed many companies changing their name (slightly) to do all kinds of stuffs (employment/tax/responsibilities etc...) and to get away with it. Uber does not hire delivery staff, they do independent contract with individuals and refers them as delivery partner. This way they don't have to pay insurances and taxes. Good luck prosecuting them. Can't say about the ex-staffs though.

According to @blvtzpk and others, @expat 2:52pm:

“Preparing work in advance and “Double spaced” is recommended for both easy proofreading and editing, before producing works for publication.”

Why would a company like UBER EATS, ever hire a gaijin to deliver food?

Because surprisingly foreign people can successfully deliver food. Seeing how the job is terribly underpaid and usually Japanese nationals have other options where they can get a job with better paid it is hardly surprising to find foreign people without those options getting money this way.

Uber in all its guises is a means of enriching a few and exploiting many. and preys on the publics desitre to get everything it can as cheap as possible with no thought of the how/why/who.....

These delivery people should all be having insurance too, they should all be registered as well with some sort of registration ID displayed, they need to be held accountable for the accidents and the damage they cause.

This seems to be common amongst Uber globally. Uber cars had their licence in London suspended and investigated after it was revealed many drivers were not checked, including the obligatory criminal record and identity checks, as well as not having insurance. Everything is done online and makes a mockery of any checking and vetting system. The police near me had a spot check of delivery cyclists a few months back, many were found to be working illegally and were taken away. I don’t care whether the bloke on the bike is on the wrong visa, but I do care if drivers and people delivering to your address are using another identity to cover up their criminal past.

I hope they shut them down, apart from their delivery people being a nuisance and a danger on the road (Today, I almost hit an uber eats scooter that cut in front of me while I was doing 60kmh) it turns out they hire illegals, too? Shady business.

Yet, I was handed a delivery by a Japanese guy who had lost his job and decided to buy a new scooter and work his butt off to survive.

There is always another side to the coin...

I guess the J-prosecutors got an anonymous tip from a J-competitor complaining that it us unfair that their business is not doing better than the foreign company.

"This is Japan!!!"

if you have paid some attention you can notice that the Jmedia is really focusing on Uber eats,

recently the prosecutors are trying and investigating really hard on Uber, I won't be surprised if even most of the news were faked or acted.

the competitors, like Panda and DiDi are also into the same business, in fact, some food delivery workers signup for multiple companies and use non-labeled bags.

but, you can see the media posting videos and images of exclusively Uber eats.

just typical attempt by the media to brainwash people. like they did many times before.

let me ask you, is overstaying foreign Uber eats worker a worst criminal than a rapist or sexual offender?

then, why you haven't seen any of their pictures?....

I grew up poor in a poor country and I know relatives and many neighbors that worked illegally in Japan.

Everyone wants a taste of a comfortable life. A month salary in Japan is a year salary of working your butt off in a poor country. So, I'd understand why people choose to live here illegally, always at the risk of getting found out and deported.

Who am I to judge? I saw how poor my parents were and how hard they worked with their little salary to get us out of that pit. They made sure to give us a good education and here I am now. I make sure to bring them here every year for as much days (90) a visitor's visa is allowed and tour Japan as much as their aging bodies can travel.

It's easy to say that in order to stay here, you must be legal. But we forget that they are dreaming for their families, too, and that makes everything understandable.

"Who cares, they probably work harder than 99 percent of Japanese delivery workers.

I keep on hearing this over and over again; foreigners always work harder, are more intelligent, diligent, free-thinkers, prettier, than every Japanese person.

Why work in Japan then?!

Work in your own counties and make them 99% better than Japan!

Japan should penalise the Employer and deport the overstayers.

Simples.

All these delivery people need to be regulated and licensed they have become such a god damn nuisance on the road just so happens uber is the name people choose to pick on, the whole lot need to be sorted out.

And half of them are too dumb to hold down a regualr job anyway, while the other half are probably casing the neighbourhood for a burglary, I know this because my house was a target some time ago.

License, registration and some form of control is needed on this industry for public safety, and the food is utter rubbish by the way, sitting in a delivery bag for half an hour while some goose works out how to find your place, the damn food is sweaty over cooked and simply terrible.

Uber Eats, Amazon, Costco, Google, FB and the rest are nothing but corporate job killers. People are becoming lazy, and they want convenience. For example, when the first TV came out if you wanted to change the channel you had to walk up to the TV and manually change the dial. Now all one has to do is lay their fat lazy arse in bed and click!! Now you have food delivery at your door with out walking out to get a meal. Japan has to be careful if they continue to let these types of business in all the little mom and pop stores will be forever gone! The internet has to be the number one killer of man kind it has destroyed many and control everyone's lives in the way they walk, talk think, and live!! It has to be the worst invention of man kind!

Notice the Vietnamese guy used an illegal ID he received from a broker. I understand Uber eats is in a difficult situation if somebody is using a real ID borrowed from someone else. I think the real guilty party here is the broker who gave/sold the ID. Rather than prosecute Uber, I hope the police are looking at the broker

@kaimycahl

I think you got the wrong idea.

Food delivery has been around for ages, tho more lately.

The current delivery companies are actually helping the mom and pop stores by allowing their food to reach more clients (that would otherwise not visit the store, specially during COVID-19).

Big companies like Amazon are no worse than Yodobashi, BicCamera and Nojima.

Gartgoyle how is taking 30% of the shops menu price helping ?

Gartgoyle how is taking 30% of the shops menu price helping ?

By allowing the merchant to sell a product that they would have not sold anyway. Also, I noticed the prices on delivery food on Uber Eats, Menu, etc are higher on these apps than on the menu at the restaurants.

Uber has destroyed the taxicab business, which is regulated, licensed and has actual employees. A once 100 billion dollar global industry. 

Not in Japan since GOJ only allows Uber Eats to operate here. Too bad.