October 5, 2011
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2011 October 5 - 11 TOP3 [LABOR]
90% of letter carriers’ car maintenance bills remain unpaid |
Poorly maintained vehicles will not only cause accidents and delays in postal delivery but also threaten the lives of letter carriers. Japan Post Service Co., Ltd. (JP Post) should take the supervisory responsibility for vehicle maintenance.
Established in 2007 following the privatization of the country’s postal services, JP Post now holds 90,000 motorbikes, 28,000 minivans, and 3,000 trucks. JP Post has outsourced these vehicles’ inspection, maintenance, and repair work to IT Cars Co., Ltd. since 2010 on a 9-billion-yen annual contract.
The company awarded the work has been in arrears with payments of the maintenance charge to about 7,000 auto-repair shops because, according to the company, “it has been subjected to a malicious fraud.”
However, JP Post is taking a non-of-my-business attitude, saying, “Dissatisfaction and complaints regarding the maintenance shops are a matter related to their contracts with IT Cars.”
On September 30, Japanese Communist Party House of Representatives members Akamine Seiken and Shiokawa Tetsuya, along with JCP House of Councilors member Yamashita Yoshiki demanded that JP Post pay the unpaid bills directly to the repair factories.
Almost all the subcontracted garages are operating as home-based businesses. They need to pay in cash for car parts and oil. Because no money is coming in from IT Cars, they are having difficulty in financing to properly maintain the vehicles.
A garage owner in Nagasaki Prefecture angrily said, “No one there answers the phone. Even when I reached someone, the person only said, ‘the company has not devised a payment plan yet.’ It’s no good at all. Where is my money!”
Another owner who has run a garage in the Kansai region for decades complained, “I have so far received only 10% of the payment due.”
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