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Ahmad Fawad Yusufi, 31, was lying in his car in a parking lot at a San Francisco stadium around 5 a.m. on November 28 when a man approached his car, tried to rob him of his wallet, and shot him dead. Yusufi, an Afghan national who arrived in the United States on a special visa after working on a U.S. military translation mission, came to the city from his home in Sacramento to drive an Uber and tried to take a break in the middle of the transition.
Since that difficult night, Yusuf’s family, which includes his brother and his wife and three children, have been left in the lurch, and now Uber needs to step in to help. In a letter to the company released today through the Gig Workers Rising team, Yusuf’s brother Mohammed, also known as Ilyas and citing Ahmad as a brother, outlined three requirements: obtaining Joseph’s Uber account, $ 4 million for immediate family support, and well. pay all Uber drivers. (Ilyas also serves as the company’s driver.)
Uber initially responded to the killing by claiming that Yusuf “appeared to have no internet” at the time of the shooting, and declined to share logs or notes of his account with his family or journalists.
In the letter, Ilyas argued that the lack of internet access on the program meant that Yusuf was not working for Uber, highlighting one of the biggest challenges of the game industry. “My brother Ahmad was killed while running your company. You lied when you told reporters he was not working for Uber at the time he was killed. He was in San Francisco to work for Uber … He paused after working at Uber that night.”
Yusuf migrated to California from Afghanistan three years ago — an important security measure after his tenure with US troops. Joseph was the caretaker of the family, Ilyas says, and even trying to get through GoFundMe page, Joseph’s wife and children did not have enough money to spend.
Growing security concerns
Gig drivers in the US are unaware of violent crime. A recent research and the Wall Street Journal revealed that although the company refused to share statistics, drivers account for 11% of carjackings in Minneapolis, and report from Markup in July he found 124 convicts of car theft and attempted carjacking in the past year and a half.
Uber has released a number of new security features, such as the rapid detection of 911 senders, the ability to issue GPS coordinates to police responders, and the voice recording system released this month. But with these other measures one of the most dangerous jobs in the country, and other drivers and operational teams, such as the Independent Drivers Guild, he says a company that does not do enough to protect its employees. Some have begun to do things with their hands, twisting pepper, installing security cameras, and even carrying a gun.
Yusuf is one of the Afghan refugees living in Sacramento who drives a Uber in San Francisco, where it needs to be boarded (others 56% of employees in all gigs in San Francisco by visitors). Ilyas says Yusuf left Sacramento for the Bay Area on Friday, November 26, to work at Uber and slept in his car as much as he could in the middle of a ride — a common occurrence for drivers who could not afford hotel rooms. According to Ilyas, a friend who was also a driver present with Yusuf said he was resting in a car at the time of the shooting.
Uber allows drivers to be active on the program for only 12 hours before seeking a six-hour break, a move that makes for a safer environment. During breaks, sleep, or meals, drivers turn off their schedule in order to earn some money.
In the letter, Ilyas stated that the low wages of Uber drivers “work so hard that thousands of Afghan drivers drive from Sacramento to San Francisco every week and sleep in their cars in unsafe places — just to earn a living. enough money each week to make ends meet. their families. ”
Which is considered a function
Uber has not yet responded to the letter, although the company is in contact with the couple. In a statement to MIT Technology Review before the letter was released, an Uber spokesman said, “We are saddened by the senseless violence that killed Mr. Joseph. We feel sorry for his family during this difficult time.”
Without a response from the San Francisco Police Department, Ilyas and his brother’s family are interested in finding out more about Joseph’s death. Ilyas tried to find Joseph’s Uber account and is said to have been suspended. He tried to contact Uber about the matter and said Uber had responded that it was against their terms.
On December 5, a local news channel ABC10 reports that Uber said Yusuf “appears to have no internet” at the time of shooting.
In a telephone interview with MIT Technology Review, an Uber spokesman said Yusuf was not working on the program from midnight until 5am on November 28, when police responded, but was working on November 27. Uber declined to disclose deadlines. The company also refused to provide Yusuf’s operating logs with the MIT Technology Review upon request, citing confidentiality.
Yusuf’s case settled the dispute over whether the employees in the gigs were eligible to work for the company. California state law has backtracked on this issue over the past few years, and in 2020, Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, and Instacart spent nearly $ 200 million to promote a system that would include gig workers in the industry as well as paid. breaks. The law, Proposition 22, was enacted in 2020 but it did not knocked down by a judge as illegal. Employees at Gig will remain unprotected as the appeal process progresses.
For Yusuf’s family, whether he was using the Uber program at the time of the shooting is irrelevant. From their point of view, Ilyas says, they were in San Francisco to run Uber. “We are refugees in this country. We don’t have much good. We are new, ”he says. “We have no one to help us. He can do whatever he wants. ”
Correction: A previous article referred to Ilyas as his cousin Ahmad Yusuf. They are really brothers.
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