gender

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Women workers win 10 years of court struggle over gender discrimination

A settlement was reached on April 25 in a lawsuit filed by four female workers seeking compensation from Sumitomo Metal Industries for gender-based wage and promotion discrimination. In the Osaka High Court-mediated settlement, the company agreed to pay them a total of 76 million yen.

The settlement is a victory for the plaintiffs because it is more favorable to them than the ruling by the Osaka District Court on March 2005 that ordered Sumitomo to pay them 63 million yen. The company had appealed to the higher court insisting that no gender discrimination existed.

The high court judge stated, "It has not been recognized that the company properly corrected the in-house gap between male and female employees in wages and other treatment," and pointed out that an increased gender consciousness in a large corporation will have great significance in society.

Plaintiff Kitagawa Kiyoko, 66 years old and now retired, said, "I cannot find the words to describe how happy I am with the historical victory over a major corporation."

The 10-year lawsuit revealed Sumitomo's "secret personnel rules" that classifies all employees into five ranks, and placed all women in the lowest rank no matter what kind of job or academic background they have. Kitagawa's annual salary was 5 million yen less and retirement pay 13 million yen less than male workers who had the same length of service.

Sumitomo has also pressured women workers to quit after having children. Kitagawa was the first woman employee at Sumitomo to continue to work after marriage as well as after giving birth. When she returned to work after maternity leave, her boss said to her, "Even dogs and cats take care of their babies. You are inferior to dogs and cats."

The plaintiffs' supporting group, since it was founded two years ago, has distributed its monthly flyers in front of Sumitomo's offices in Tokyo and Osaka as well as made representations to the government and Diet members. Japanese Communist Party lawmakers and assembly members brought up this case in the Diet and Osaka Prefectural Assembly, calling for the elimination of gender discrimination.
- Akahata, April 26, 2006