2 Firms Linked to Recruit Accused of Discrimination
Two Los Angeles-based companies linked to Recruit, the Tokyo firm at the center of a scandal that has rocked Japanese politics, are under investigation by the U.S. government on charges that their employee recruitment businesses have engaged in “a shocking pattern” of race, age and sex discrimination.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, in court documents filed Tuesday, alleged that Interplace/Transworld Recruit, a job referral agency partly owned by Recruit, used a secret code in internal documents to specify employers’ preferences for workers of a particular race, sex, national origin or age.
For instance, if an employer only wanted to hire whites between the ages of 30 and 40, a notation would be placed on a job order that read, “Talk to Mary; Suite 30-40,” according to an Interplace memo filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco by the commission. If the employer sought a black, the code would read, “Talk to Maryanne,” the memo says.
Memo on IBM
A second memo filed in court describes a meeting between top executives of IBM Japan and Recruit U.S.A., the Tokyo firm’s U.S. subsidiary. The memo describes Recruit’s plans for a hiring campaign on behalf of IBM in which non-Asian applicants allegedly would be denied consideration.
That April, 1988, memo, written in Japanese, says, “Foreigners, no good--IBM current rule. . . . White people, black people--NO, but second-generation Japanese or others of Asian descent OK.”
The commission launched an investigation of the two firms after former employees told the San Francisco Chronicle of the alleged practices. In a relatively uncommon step taken when the victims of alleged discrimination are unknown, the formal charges were filed last week by the commission’s vice chairman, E. Gaull Silberman.
John Shiner, an attorney in Los Angeles for the Recruit firms, said Wednesday that when former employees confronted company officials with charges of improper practices, steps were taken to make sure the firms’ policies complied with U.S. law. Shiner declined to comment on the commission’s charges, however, saying he had not had time to review the stack of documents filed by the government.
IBM has not been publicly charged, and commission lawyers declined to say if the computer maker is under investigation. Mac Jeffery, a spokesman in Tokyo for IBM Japan, said the firm does not discriminate and that the memo does not accurately reflect the instructions IBM gave Recruit.
“At no time in that meeting did we even hint to them we wanted to screen out anybody,” Jeffery said. Jeffery said there was no indication IBM was a subject of the job commission’s investigation.
Restraining Order Obtained
Normally, commission charges and investigations are confidential until action is taken against an employer. The charges against the Recruit firms became public Tuesday, however, when commission lawyers--fearful that the companies would destroy documents critical to the inquiry--obtained a restraining order from U.S. District Judge Stanley A. Weigel directing Recruit not to alter any records or remove them from the country.
Japanese Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita and 52 other top officials in Japanese government, business and journalism have been forced to resign amid disclosures that they accepted millions of dollars in payments from Recruit, a firm that began as a tiny job referral agency and became a sprawling information and real estate empire.
The company’s U.S. operations are far more low key.
Interplace primarily operates in the domestic American market, recruiting employees in the United States for American firms. Recruit U.S.A. publishes help-wanted magazines in which Japanese and other companies run ads soliciting job applications from bilingual Americans interested in working in Japan. For an additional fee, the firm also will screen and refer applicants.
In addition to their downtown Los Angeles headquarters, the firms have offices in New York and several California cities, including Costa Mesa, Torrance, Gardena, San Francisco and San Mateo.
The charges, which could subject the Recruit companies to fines or orders to make restitution to job applicants, reflect the employment commission’s growing attention to the conduct of Japanese firms in the United States.
Agreement on Hiring
The Big Three Japanese car makers--Nissan, Toyota and Honda--all have agreed in the last two years to alter their hiring practices and give jobs to minority applicants following commission investigations. Clarence Thomas, chairman of the commission, has declared that the agency will be especially vigilant that Japanese firms not try to import to the United States hiring practices acceptable under Japan’s far weaker discrimination laws.
However, the kind of activities allegedly engaged in by Interplace and Recruit U.S.A. hardly are confined to Japanese personnel agencies. Civil rights lawyers long have complained that it is widespread practice for employers to use personnel agencies to screen out job applicants on the basis of age, race or sex, said Linda J. Krieger, a senior trial attorney for the commission in San Francisco.
HOW RECRUIT CODED ITS JOB ORDERS
When a company hired Interplace/Transworld Recruit to screen and refer potential employees, the job agency allegedly used a code on the job order to indicate the client’s preferences regarding the age, sex, race and nationality of job prospects. The codes, and their meaning, are outlined in an Interplace memo disclosed in court by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission:
SUITE 20 THROUGH 35 or SUITE 20-35: ages 20 to 35 FLOOR 40: person in his/her 40’s TALK TO MARIA or SEE MARIA or MEET WITH MARIA: prefer/will accept Hispanics TALK TO MARY or SEE MARY or MEET WITH MARY: prefer/will accept Caucasians TALK TO MARIKO or SEE MARIKO or MEET WITH MARIKO: prefer/will accept Japanese TALK TO ADAM or SEE ADAM or MEET WITH ADAM: prefer/must be Male TALK TO EVE or SEE EVE or MEET WITH EVE: prefer/must be Female TALK TO MARYANNE or SEE MARYANNE or MEET WITH MARYANNE: prefer/will accept Blacks Source: Court filing by Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
