Mitsubishi Motor Wants to Settle Sexual Harassment Lawsuit

Mitsubishi Motor Manufacturing of America, which has taken a combative stance in defending itself against federal charges of widespread sexual harassment at its plant in Normal, Ill., now says it wants to settle the controversial case.

Tsuneo Ohinouye, chairman and chief executive of the Japanese-owned auto maker, also said in an interview with the New York Times that the company has fired 10 male employees, including four this year, for sexually harassing female co-workers.

It was Ohinouye’s first interview since the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a class-action lawsuit against Mitsubishi two weeks ago that, government lawyers say, could become the agency’s biggest sexual harassment case ever.

The suit alleges that hundreds of female employees were sexually harassed at the plant from 1990 through 1995, and it parallels a private lawsuit filed in 1994 that now includes 29 female employees as plaintiffs.

George Galland, a lawyer representing the women in the private suit, said neither he nor the EEOC has been contacted by Mitsubishi about a settlement. Ohinouye’s comments “don’t matter until someone calls us up and says . . . ‘Let’s sit down and talk,’ ” he said.