U.S. Charges Sex Harassment at Mitsubishi Plant
In one of the biggest sexual harassment cases ever brought by the federal government, authorities charged Tuesday that hundreds of women assembly line workers at Mitsubishi’s automobile plant in Illinois for years were routinely groped and subjected to unwanted sexual graffiti and lewd comments by male co-workers and supervisors.
Officials of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, detailing a government lawsuit filed in Peoria, Ill., said that in some cases women were coerced into performing sex acts with low-level company supervisors.
Authorities called the case perhaps the most egregious turned up by the federal government, given the number of women involved and the fact that some of the abuses are alleged to have occurred daily for five years or more. Officials said Mitsubishi managers were repeatedly alerted to the pervasive problems--first by numerous employees, and later by government investigators--but failed to curb the abuses.
“It was standard operating procedure to allow sexual harassment on an ongoing basis,” said Cynthia G. Pierre, deputy director of the Chicago office of the EEOC.
The government’s allegations were denied by officials at Mitsubishi Motor Manufacturing of America, the U.S. subsidiary of Japan’s Mitsubishi Motors Corp. and the operator of the Normal, Ill., factory cited by the EEOC.
“From day one, we’ve had policies and procedures and practices to avoid sexual harassment,” said Gary Shultz, a vice president and general counsel for the U.S. arm of Mitsubishi. These efforts, Shultz said, have effectively prevented sexual harassment at the company.
The EEOC’s case, based on a 15-month investigation, parallels a private lawsuit filed in 1994 on behalf of more than two dozen women against the company. The private case, still pending, also accused supervisors of making racist remarks about black workers.
Women’s rights advocates hailed the EEOC suit. “This is a loud and clear message by the [Clinton] administration that they take women in the workplace seriously,” said Judith L. Lichtman, president of the Women’s Legal Defense Fund, an advocacy group based in Washington.
She credited administration officials for recognizing that sexual harassment “is much more pervasive than we’d like, and in some workplaces, it’s a lot worse than others.”
While sexual harassment is emerging as a serious issue in Japan, EEOC officials and others who follow the issue brushed aside suggestions that it is a particularly prevalent problem at Japanese-owned companies in the United States.
“It would be too easy and facile to put the blame on someone in a foreign land,” Lichtman said. “It was U.S. workers who allegedly perpetrated gross sexual misconduct at the plant.”
EEOC officials said they could not determine exactly how many women were harassed, but estimated that the number was in the hundreds based on the accounts of the more than 100 women interviewed by government investigators. The investigation, officials said, determined that the problems dated at least as far back as 1990. During that period, the EEOC said, about 700 of the 4,000 plant employees have been women.
The government is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages for each woman allegedly harassed. Even though federal law limits such damages to $300,000, the number of women involved could translate into an award in the tens of millions of dollars if the government prevails in court. The government is also seeking back pay for women who allegedly lost their jobs because they protested about harassment.
In its previous biggest sexual harassment case, the EEOC won a settlement of nearly $1.2 million in August for 15 women who claimed they were subjected to abuse by the chief executive officer of Del Laboratories of Farmingdale, N.Y., a cosmetics company.
At Mitsubishi’s Normal plant, Pierre said, low-level supervisors in a limited number of cases threatened retaliation against women who refused to perform oral sex. She said many of the victims feared they could lose their jobs, which typically paid about $50,000 a year, and that they would be unable to find equivalent new jobs.
On hundreds of other occasions, Pierre said, male supervisors and assembly line workers grabbed the breasts, buttocks and genitals of women employees.
EEOC officials said a “hostile and abusive work environment” was also created by such actions as allowing the posting of sexually explicit drawings and leaving of notes on bathroom walls about women who allegedly engaged in sex acts with male co-workers.
“This case is an example of EEOC’s strategic law enforcement,” said Paul M. Igasaki, EEOC vice chairman, in a prepared statement. “This is a big employer, which for years has permitted gross and shocking sexual discrimination to be perpetrated upon its female employees. The action EEOC is taking today will have significant impact on the lives of working women throughout the country, especially those attempting to earn a living in jobs long dominated by men.”
The plant 140 miles south of Chicago opened in 1988 as a joint venture between Mitsubishi and Chrysler. The partnership was dissolved in 1991, but the factory continues to produce mid-size sedans and sports cars for both companies, including the Mitsubishi Eclipse and Galant, along with the Eagle Talon and Dodge Avenger and Sebring for Chrysler.
Workers are represented by the United Auto Workers, but officials of the union declined to comment.
