American Alleges Bias in Suit Against Toyota

‘I think we really have to take the blinders off and recognize what’s happening.’

--John Horton, Toyota manager

The biggest compliment John Horton recalls getting during his decade at Toyota Technical Center in Gardena was a whispered comment about his work from a Japanese supervisor.

“John san, you’re almost Japanese,” Horton recalls his boss saying.

But Horton was not Japanese, and his inability to rise as quickly as he would have liked has left him embittered at age 46, and led him last month to file an employment discrimination and civil rights suit in Torrance Superior Court against the company.

He claims that the Japanese auto giant kept him and other non-Japanese nationals from advancing because of their national origin.

“I want Americans to know what my experience has been working for Toyota for 10 years,” said Horton, a South Bay resident who until this year was the highest-ranking non-Japanese at the Technical Center. “I think we really have to take the blinders off and recognize what’s happening.”

Toyota representatives refused to respond specifically to Horton’s charges, although they denied that any discrimination has taken place. They said the suit, which seeks more than $240 million in damages, lacks merit.

The heart of Horton’s suit is his claim that Toyota Motor Corp. maintains separate employment tracks for Japanese nationals and all other workers at Toyota Technical, the auto maker’s California-based research and development arm, which was incorporated in 1977.

Japanese nationals report only to other Japanese executives, speak Japanese at regular staff meetings and exclude non-Japanese from some important company functions, Horton said in an interview.

His suit alleges that a “glass ceiling” at Toyota keeps Americans--including white males like Horton--from advancing to high-level, decision-making roles, an argument similar to that made by many women and members of minority groups at U.S. companies.

The suit against Toyota is not the first to raise such allegations against Japanese firms. A University of Michigan study that drew national publicity in 1989 found that American managers at Japanese firms are excluded from planning and decision-making and have little access to strategic information.

The study, based on a survey of American managers at Japanese companies, also found that American managers have few opportunities for career advancement. The study, which was conducted by both American and Japanese researchers, put some of the blame on American managers themselves for failing to learn the Japanese culture and language.

Horton, who knows conversational Japanese and has lived in Japan and other parts of Asia, started with Toyota Technical in March, 1981, as assistant manager of administration. Over the next decade, he was promoted to senior assistant manager of administration and then manager of administration. He said his positions never gave him authority over any Japanese nationals.

Horton remains at Toyota in his manager’s position. Another non-Japanese, James Griffith, was hired in April to a newly created position as his boss.

Horton’s suit says his numerous title changes “gave the appearance of promotion without the substance given to plaintiff’s Japanese counterparts.” It also says Horton was paid less than Japanese nationals in similar positions.

David Greenberg, Horton’s lawyer, declined to provide Horton’s salary and said his office has yet to subpoena documents from the company to complete an actual salary comparison.

To win his suit, Horton must show in court that he was passed over for promotions and treated differently from other employees because he was not Japanese. Such arguments are typically made by comparing qualifications and performance appraisals of employees. A defendant company must show that its employment promotions were business decisions not affected by race, or if race was a factor it was done for a legitimate business reason.

Toyota’s Los Angeles-based attorney, Stephen Barry, said Horton’s case is without merit, but he refused to comment specifically on Horton’s charges.

“It is the policy of Toyota and particularly of Toyota Technical Center not to comment on matters in litigation,” Barry said. “The company does not believe there’s merit to the lawsuit. . . . I really don’t think there’s much of a case.”

Griffith, general manager for administration, also refused to discuss the lawsuit.

“Toyota does not discriminate in its employment practices,” said Griffith, who spent much of his career at TRW Inc. “. . . This is a very good place to work.”

Griffith said that of the 250 employees at Toyota Technical, 100 are Japanese nationals. The company is going through an Americanization program that will expand the number of American staff members, he said.

Horton said his Japanese bosses hired him to lead the Americanization of the company but consistently resisted his calls for race-neutral promotions.

In his current position, Horton is in charge of purchasing, import/export, new construction and employee safety.

Horton said he was told by his Japanese superiors not to speak Japanese at the company. Japanese supervisors conducted large portions of staff meetings in Japanese, leaving most American workers in the dark, he said.

Until the late 1980s, Horton said he was the only American manager. There are now about a dozen American managers, he said. One is a woman; none are black or Latino, he said. The management structure on the Japanese side is “secretive,” he charged.

Horton and his attorneys called the hiring of Griffith “window dressing” and not a signal that the company is changing its two employment tracks.

Horton questioned Griffith’s real power at the company because he is not able to converse with his Japanese superiors here or with Japan-based Toyota executives in their native language. Horton said he has translated Japanese for Griffith at staff meetings.

“Toyota Motor Corp. has a right to conduct its business in Japan any way they want,” said Stephen B. Simon, another Horton attorney. “But Toyota Technical Center is a California corporation that is required to follow the rules of the state and the United States.”

Horton said he still has strong loyalties to the company and agonized before filing a complaint in May with the state Department of Fair Employment and Housing and then following up with the lawsuit.

Still, he said he received many signals over the years that he and other Americans were not fully trusted.

When a new president, Kunihiko Masaki, took over Toyota Technical in 1988, no Americans at the company were invited to the welcome dinner, Horton said.

“If we’re working together, if we’re prospering together, why did they have to exclude us?” Horton asked.