Sexual misconduct settlement largest ever; wide impact seen

By By Steven Wilmsen Globe Staff, Globe Staff, 06/12/98

Mitsubishi Motors agreed yesterday to pay a record $34 million to 350 woman assembly line workers at its Illinois plant, ending a bitter two-year lawsuit involving allegations that the employees were targets of groping and sexual insults for years and that company managers did nothing to prevent the harassment.

The sheer size of the settlement, by far the largest in the history of the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, will shake the corporate landscape in ways previous cases have not, labor specialists said.

''That's huge money, absolutely huge,'' said Paul Stantzler, an employment lawyer for Boston's Burns & Levinson. ''Nobody can possibly ignore this. The message for anybody who runs a business is that you overlook problems like that at your peril because the price will be very large.''

The settlement, contained in a consent decreee that is still subject to federal court approval, also requires the Japanese-owned auto maker to revise its sexual harassment policy, provide mandatory training to employees about sexual harassment issues, and investigate allegations of harassment within three weeks. A three-member panel will monitor company compliance.

Under the settlement, the 350 employees will receive payouts ranging from several thousand dollars to as much as $300,000, the limit allowed for damages under federal law for sexual harassment cases filed by the EEOC.

''Make no mistake about it, the Mitsubishi situation is not unique and no employer should assume that it can't happen in my company,'' said EEOC chairman Paul M. Igasaki at a news conference yesterday. ''Other employers should take heed. EEOC will aggressively pursue problems like this.''

In settling the case, Mitsubishi made no admission of wrongdoing. At a news conference, Mitsubishi executive vice president Larry Greene, surrounded by top company executives, said: ''We of course apologize to any employee who has been harassed or retaliated against.''

The previous record settlement for a sexual harassment case brought by the EEOC was $9.85 million, paid by Astra USA of Westborough, the US subsidiary of the Swedish pharmaceutical maker. In that case, Lars Bildman, the company's chief executive, and other top managers were accused of fondling women employees and pressuring them for sex.

The size of the Mitsubishi settlement reflects the severity and breadth of the allegations in the EEOC's complaint, according to labor lawyers. The EEOC charged that at least since 1990 male workers and managers at the company's manufacturing plant in Normal, Ill. engaged in continual ''groping, grabbing and touching'' of women assembly line workers. They also pressured some of the women to have sex with them as a condition of employment, the EEOC said. Some women who complained were fired, according to the complaint.

The women contended that male workers routinely called them ''whores'' and ''bitches'' and more obscene terms. They also said men displayed sexual grafitti and pictures, including pornographic drawings of the women workers.

The suit said Mitsubishi failed to take ''corrective action'' in response to the employees' complaints.

From the beginning the Mitsubishi plant's mostly American management was adamant in its denial of the charges and said the suit was an attention-getting move by politically motivated bureaucrats - a reference to the EEOC enforcement efforts.

Mitsubishi took the offensive by organizing a demonstration outside the EEOC's offices in Chicago. About 3,000 company workers were paid a full day's wages to take part in the protest against the EEOC's charges.

''Bad move,'' said Nancy Shilepsky, an employment lawyer for Dwyer & Collora who has authored several books on labor law and has followed the case closely. ''I don't know what they were thinking, but it was a very bad move.''

The suit became a high-profile war of words between Mitsubishi and the EEOC, where the stakes were indeed high. The commission faced funding cuts undere the Reagan and Bush administrations and had a string of failed cases and a tarnished public image.

''For years, people were saying it had no teeth and that it just wasn't effective,'' Shilepsky said. ''A few years ago, it revved up to try to do high-profile cases. They went after some cases and really overreached. They had to do something to right the perception they are not an effective or relevent body.''

Mitsubishi ultimately backed off its hard-line strategy, hiring former US Labor Secretary Lynn Martin to study its workplace and make recommendations.

In February, the company said it was implementing a wide range of programs designed to eliminate discrimination and harassment, though it didn't acknowledge that the alleged illegal actions had occurred. Last year, the company settled a separate sexual harassment suit brought by 27 women for $9.5 million.

The size and publicity of the Mitsubishi agreement will, like all large settlements, have the unintended effect of encouraging a host of new lawsuits across the country, some of them unfounded, labor lawyers said.

''You can expect a rash of claims that probably can't be supported,'' said John Adkins, a partner at Bingham Dana in Boston. ''It's a predictable outcome of a settlement that large. And usually when you see a rise of claims like that they never quite fall again to the level where they started. It means as a society we'll have more charges and more litigation.

''In terms of the greater good we have a very tricky balance to strike. It's like treating cancer. You try to kill the cancer without killing the patient. We all hate a litigious society, but the alternative is not acceptable.''

Material from Globe wire services was used in this report.

This story ran on page of the Boston Globe on 06/12/98.
© Copyright 1998 Globe Newspaper Company.

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