Toyota reaches settlement above bullied engineer's suicide

Japanese automaker Toyota has already reached a settlement with the category of an engineer whose suicide was ruled a job-related death due to harassment from his boss.

Toyota Electric motor Corp vowed to crack downwards on harassment in the workplace to ensure staff’ safety and expressed deep remorse, “facing up with true sincerity to the actual fact that a valuable worker’s life was shed".

The engineer, then 28, was repeatedly ridiculed by his boss, prevented from taking times off and told to die. His suicide in 2017 was ruled by a regional labour bureau as a job-related loss of life in 2019, entitling his family to compensation. 

His name has been withheld because of privacy concerns, standard in Japan.

To prevent potential harassment, Toyota will improve staff' healthcare, better evaluate supervision, educate workers and inspire a workplace way of life where employees may speak up, the company said in a declaration Monday (Jun 7). 

“Toyota promises to focus on developing persons who, every single one, can take a pastime found in those around them, in our stance that electric power harassment should never come to be tolerated,” it said.

The attorney for the victim and his family, Yoshihide Tachino, said Toyota was accountable for mismanagement in allowing the harassment to keep. The quantity of compensation the friends and family will receive had not been disclosed.

He stressed the settlement includes the preventive measures promised by Toyota in addition to a thorough investigation in to the death. Enterprise President Akio Toyoda achieved with the category of the deceased and promised to effect a result of change, but the company should be monitored to create workplace culture changes, Tachino said.

“We assume that the legacy of work to curtail power harassment pays respect to his tragic loss of life, which came too soon at 28, although little or nothing will ever be adequate,” he said.

The case has drawn attention as highlighting a universal problem in workaholic Japan, where such abuse often goes unchecked or undetected.

Complaints in Japan about various workplace misuse, including sexual harassment and concerns over parental leave, have climbed to about 88,000 cases a good year, more than tripling in the last 15 years.

They have been widespread, involving the police, schools and judo athletes, in addition to various companies.

In the Toyota case, the young engineer’s boss bullied him constantly, including discussing his educational background. Although he previously a graduate degree from the prestigious University of Tokyo, his undergraduate level was from a not as much elite institution, according to a study in to the case. Such history details could be painfully important in conformist Japan.

The engineer, who joined Toyota in 2015, told those around him that he'd rather die than endure the troubled. He took a while off in 2016, citing mental strain. When he returned to work, Toyota designated him to another section, but he was still working on the same floor as his past boss, records show.

The family said in a statement that their son won't return regardless of the compensation.

“My heart nonetheless aches over what possesses happened to my beloved boy. And when I believe of him, all I want is to possess him back,” the statement said.