Rail Workers’ Post-Crash Actions Appall Japanese

In the hours following Japan’s worst train crash in more than 40 years, with the death toll soaring and rescuers still struggling to free injured passengers from the wreckage, 43 executives and staffers of the company that operates the line responded to the emergency by sticking to their original plans for the day.

They went bowling.

They weren’t alone. Since the April 25 crash that killed 107 people near Amagasaki, northwest of Osaka, there has been a stream of revelations about employees of West Japan Railway Co. enjoying themselves at golf tournaments and boozy parties at the same moment their passengers lay dead or dying.

The news that no one spoke up to put a stop to the celebrations has appalled many Japanese.

The company says it has seen a sharp rise in physical and verbal assaults on its staff since the crash. And there is widespread wonder about the moral climate within the Osaka-based company, now stained by what is seen as callous behavior toward the victims.

It includes the disclosure that two company drivers who were riding the doomed train to work that morning called in to report the accident and were told by their bosses to leave the scene immediately and report for their shift.

JR West, as the company is commonly known, later apologized for its drivers not staying to help rescue injured passengers. It said the two drivers and the bosses who ordered them to leave would be disciplined.

The embarrassment was compounded by revelations of other dubious conduct on the day of the accident.

In addition to those who went bowling, the roll call includes 19 employees who resumed play in a company golf tournament after being told of the crash, and dozens of others who spent the day drinking at restaurants and bars or celebrating at retirement parties.

An internal company investigation reported Friday that 185 employees went ahead with events a company official described at a news conference as “inappropriate.” JR West President Takeshi Kakiuchi called the behavior “lamentable and regrettable.”

Apologies have not lessened the incredulity among Japanese at what many see as a dysfunctional corporate culture. Many say the company, which was privatized in the late 1980s, remains locked into old-fashioned Japanese business habits in which the emphasis on hierarchy means individuals are reluctant to challenge their bosses.

“JR West employees are not treated like human beings, they are treated like parts of a machine,” said Kenji Matsui, 55, a Tokyo architect, voicing a widely held opinion of the railway company. “I don’t think those drivers who left the scene are particularly bad.... They have to ask their bosses for everything.”

The inability to alter plans appears to have extended to the group of 43 that went bowling. Those employees work in a section of JR West in which they were not subject to the emergency call issued by the company.

Thirteen members of the group told company investigators that they were aware of the crash when they gathered to bowl at 12:30 p.m., about three hours after the train derailed. A company official said Friday that some of the employees “thought it was problematic” to continue with the outing, but none felt comfortable to “come forward to say that.”

Instead, the group went bowling and then to a postgame lunch at a restaurant. A JR West official told reporters last week that the organizers thought that “canceling a reservation for a large number of people would be difficult.”

“JR West workers are controlled strictly; consequently they lacked the courage or imagination to stop the planned party,” said Shunji Kobayashi, a law professor who teaches corporate ethics at Waseda University.

Kobayashi said that the railroad, because it is based in Osaka, operates outside the media glare of Tokyo and might therefore be less sensitive to the importance of public relations.

“Corporate people in Tokyo are more aware they will be in the news if they do something wrong,” he said. “If the crash had happened in Tokyo, the bosses would have given more weight to the importance of public relations.”

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Special correspondent Naoko Nishiwaki contributed to this report.