Job Discussion Forums

[jojoebi]

[Blue Ocean]

I was also an ex-USCOM empolyee. I went to the Labor Bureau and I fought and WON. I was able to get full compensation for every single yen that USCOM had ripped off of me. I was very fortunate in that I had documented every single injustice that had occurred since the very first day that I worked at USCOM.

The first thing that the Labor Bureau did was check to see if USCOM was registered with them and if they were actually a legit company, but the bureau found NO records at all for the company USCOM.

Next, the bureau looked at all my evidence and documentations and found that USCOM had broken the law in the following areas:

1. No contract and YES, it is TOTALLY ILLEGAL to have only an oral contract. It must be written.

2. Apartment: Let me start out with what happened just before I moved to USCOM�s apartment�. The problems started when USCOM would not tell me the move date. Since I already had been living in Japan for over the past 5 years, I had acquired many belongings and needed to plan properly for a move. But, USCOM would not tell me the move date. Finally, USCOM decided to tell me the day before my very first day of work for them!!! It gets even better, they told me that I could start moving in at 5 pm!!!! Remind you, I HAD A LOT OF STUFF, (2,000lbs worth) and USCOM knew this. It was beyond ridiculous to make such a BIG move in such a short amount of time. Anyway, the story goes, by the time I got to USCOM�s apartment, it was already past 8 p.m. and it was dark. Could things get much worse??? YES, it did!!! Mr. Sugita (the owner of USCOM) gave me the key and had the nerve to say, be in bed by 9p.m. Next, to make things worse, the apartment had NO lights. I was stuck doing the entire move in the dark. By the time I got all of my belongings out of the moving truck it was close to 3am. I had to get up for work by 6am. What a wonderful start, eh? Who treats their new employees like that?
The following info is what the Labor Bureau wanted to know about:
USCOM set me up in the over-expensive apartment that was in the countryside and over 40 minutes walking to the train station. When I got to the apartment, it had not been cleaned from the last USCOM employee that had apparently lived there. The bathroom walls were filthy, black, and just reeked of mildew. Garbage was scattered all over the floors. Dirty dishes were left in the sink. There were holes in the closet doors. The apartment was in such a bad location that any type of cellular phone was not able to receive or make outgoing calls. This is not the type of apartment that I would ever sign my name to on a contract. The rent was just outrageous and after 5 years of living in Japan, I knew that there was NO WAY in heck that it cost that much. Indeed, I checked up with the realtor and found that USCOM was over-charging.

3. Transportation: USCOM had me drive, with my OWN car, to and from the schools that I worked at. Mind you, these schools were FAR from the apartment that USCOM put me in. Sometimes, I would be driving over 60km in one day. USCOM had told me that they PAID for ALL transportation fees. This was one of their lies. When payday came along I would only get paid half of the cost of gas. The other half of the money I had to take from my own pocket. It was nuts. Thankfully, on a daily basis, I would write down every kilometer that I drove and kept the gas receipts. The Labor Bureau loved this.

4. Lunches: Upon hiring me, USCOM informed me that lunches were covered. This was another outlandish lie. They NEVER paid for one of them. When I asked them about it, they denied it.

5. Sick Days: ZERO. USCOM gives you none (AND THIS IS AFTER I WORKED AT USCOM FOR 6 MONTHS!!!) This is absolutely AGAINST the law. In the 7 months that I worked at USCOM, I got sick one time and called in the night before to tell Mr. Sugita (the owner of USCOM and Morgan the assistant owner). They informed me that I would have to come in and work on the weekend to make up the sick day. Totally illegal. Again, the Labor Bureau loved it.

6. No Health Insurance: That just speaks for itself.

For now, these are the laws that USCOM broke and I reported to the Labor Bureau. There were probably more but I would have to go back and get out all of the paperwork to be for sure.

YES�. complaining to the Labor Bureau does work. But, I�m telling you now; they DON�T speak a lick of English this includes their translator. So if you or anybody else ever wants to go up against USCOM or any other corrupt companies, you had better bring a Japanese friend to do your translating. Also, BE SURE to have everything documented. Documentation and evidence will do you a world of good. I made it a point NOT to quit USCOM until I was sure that I had all of the documentation, etc� that I needed to win at the Labor Bureau. If I would have quit before that, I might not have been able to do much. You MUST get everything together and prepared before making the trip to the Labor Bureau.

I know that this has to be one of the most long, drawn out posts ever, but I just want all teachers to be aware of what USCOM did.

[Blue Ocean]

By the way, for all those who want to know, USCOM is now going under a new company name "Lil kids". They currently have job advertisements on www.Gaijinpot.com for ALT jobs in Hachioji and Iruma. My advice, be very carefull and don't apply for them. You will end up broke.

[bearcat]

[Blue Ocean]

I know. I also saw the threads this morning on Gaijinpot and realized that somebody had taken my original thread from here (Dave's ESL Cafe) and copied/pasted it onto Gaijinpot. I wanted to thank them for that because I was going to make a post on Gaijinpot warning others of USCOM/Lil Kids but somebody beat me to it. Now, all of the USCOM/Lil Kids threads are deleted except for the new ones posted there tonight.
I have no revenge thing going on against USCOM/Lil Kids, but I think that people should be advised that USCOM/Lil Kids has a bad record with the Saitama Labor Bureau and have broken labor laws. Their turnover rate is very high due to this. I just don't want to see anybody else get hurt by them. That's all.

[bearcat]

Part of the reason I think that the posts got deleted wasn't in so much as the information about them from here but the people like von and others who were posting in the thread and got a lil too over the top. Von's got a rep for getting threads deleted because of his choice of words. Admin sometimes just delete the whole thing out of not really wanting to bother with it in general.

Those same people then started threads this morning shortly after deletion and the admin just deleted em again. Now they're in danger of getting deleted again not for content but because they posted it in two different sections (which is considered spamming) and they are bucking the admin.

Now granted, as well, GP likes to avoid controversy with regard to running and maintaining their website. If they get serious complaints or threats from schools, they simply delete discussions and avoid the controvery. Many sites do this instead of fighting it because in the end its them or the poster and they're not willing to sacrifice that much for someone who posts freely without any responsibilities to the website.

Don't like it but that's the way some do business.

[Mike L.]

Bearcart, I think the reality is that Gaijinpot won't tollerate any criticism of any of it's sponsers. Even if they are not legally registered companies and have several strikes against them fromt he Labour Standards Board.

I recieved this wraning from site admin:

WARNING Re: USCOM Thread

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear User,

The USCOM threads have been deleted. As you are aware, we do not permit the excessive slandering of companies or individuals on our site. Please refrain in future. If you do not, we will be forced to take further action.

Kind Regards,

The ONE
Moderator/Administrator
GaijinPot.com

****************


I personally don't see how posting a quote from here, that looks legit, about this USCOM has anything to do with "slander."

However, all along my hypothesis has been that Gaijinpot is little more than the site of a media company designed to exploit gaijin in Jpaan via any means possible.

The gaijin moderator is either a puppet or co-partner in crime that's for sure!!!

[Mike L.]

PS I replied to the moderator something along the same lines minus the last criticism of the site.

If I get banned I'll report back here in a new thread!

[bearcat]

Look Ive participated in many threads about Smith's school of english that got deleted as well so Im not trying to justify their practices just explain them.

Now there were posts on that thread calling the owners gay and sleep around with students or some such. That sort of thing pretty much will get it deleted in a heart beat. Again, they'll delete the whole thing just to whipe their hands of it. Post linkable facts and offers to people to pm anytime about allegations and they can't refute or have those deleted. Its only when others get on the same thread and pretty much run em amuck with stupid crap that makes the admin there come out of the wood work.

As well, they're less likely to delete info you imbed in posts that don't have the company mentioned in the title.