One of the biggest sexual-harassment suits in US corporate history has led to two senior officials losing their positions at Mitsubishi and 28 women are still set to sue. Frank Swoboda and Warren Brown report
Mitsubishi Motor Corporation has replaced the top two Japanese officials of its United States auto-operations as part of the continuing fallout from the sexual- harassment suits filed against the company’s manufacturing plant in Normal, Illinois, company officials confirmed this week.
The changes were announced just days after former secretary of labour Lynn Martin met in Tokyo with the parent corporation’s board of directors to discuss the progress being made in the effort to eliminate sexual-harassment problems at the Illinois plant.
Martin was hired last May to recommend workplace changes after the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)filed the biggest sexual-harassment suit in its history against the company.
The lawsuit, filed in April 1996, charged that male employees and managers at the Illinois plant engaged in repeated acts of sexual harassment from “grabbing, groping and touching” to requiring women to engage in sexual relations to keep their jobs.
The company has denied that the sexual harassment was as widespread as the government alleges and is in negotiations to settle a separate private sexual- harassment suit.
A company source, who asked not to be identified, said this week the personnel changes had been made at the Illinois assembly plant out of concern that several key officials in the plant – both Japanese and American – were resisting recommendations by a Martin-led task force to prevent harassment inside the plant.
Last February, a special task force headed by Martin recommended major changes in the plant’s operations. These included an overhaul of the company’s human-resources department, a revamping of worker training and creation of a separate department to handle sexual harassment and other employment discrimination complaints to eliminate the setting that allowed sexual harassment to occur on the factory floor.
The executive changes came nearly a year after managers at the Illinois plant helped organise and finance an employee demonstration outside the EEOC’s Chicago offices to protest the government lawsuit.
The company came under heavy criticism from civil rights and women’s groups for appearing to finance a public attack on the government agency charged with enforcing anti-discrimination laws. Within Mitsubishi Corporation, executives criticised the demonstration for hurting the sales and image of all other Mitsubishi enterprises in the US.
Company officials confirmed that Tsuneo Ohinouye, chair of Mitsubishi Motor Manufacturing of America, and Tohei Takeuchi, president of Mitsubishi Motor Sales of America, are being replaced, effective June 27. Their jobs are being combined under a new chair, Michio Yamashita, a manufacturing veteran handpicked by the parent corporation.
Junzo Ishino, vice-president for public relations at Mitsubishi Motors of America, said he could not speak specifically about the motives behind the management changes at the Illinois auto assembly plant.
Ohinouye and Takeuchi will remain with the company as “advisers”. In nearly identical letters to their employees, the two executives said the changes at the top of the US operations were ordered by the board of directors in Tokyo at an April 25 meeting.
Ohinouye said he will retire as chair and stay on as an adviser to help implement changes recommended by the Martin task force. Takeuchi plans to return to Japan.
On the legal front, the EEOC last week released to the company the names of 289 women the government agency alleged had been sexually harassed. EEOC attorney John Hendrickson said that public statements warning that jobs would be lost if the lawsuit continued has had a chilling effect on some women who otherwise might have stepped forward. Mitsubishi has denied this is so.
“I have no doubt the numbers are on the low side,” Hendrickson said. “We believe the numbers [of women] were held down by Mitsubishi’s intimidation tactics. They aroused a fair amount of anxiety and inspired women to deny that any harassment is going on.”
Meanwhile, depositions of 28 women in the private lawsuit will soon be completed, says their attorney, Patricia Benassi. – The Washington Post