Workplace Sex Bias Suit Upheld by Japanese Court

In a major victory for Japan’s working women, a court Friday upheld a lower court ruling that 12 women had been sexually discriminated against in promotions and pay, ordering their company to pay $1.6 million in damages.

The Tokyo High Court handed down the ruling in a lawsuit initially filed in 1987 against Tokyo-based Shiba Credit Assn. The legal battle has been closely watched in male-dominated Japan as setting a precedent for decisions on sexual discrimination in the workplace.

In 1996, the Tokyo District Court ruled, the female employees had been passed over for promotions they deserved at the Shiba Credit Assn. The company had appealed.

Company officials were not available for comment Friday, and it was unclear whether they were considering a further appeal to the Supreme Court. Shiba Credit has previously denied discriminating against the women, saying it awarded promotions according to ability.

“I was kept in the lowest position no matter how many years I worked. And I was really working hard,” said Noriko Narumi, 56, who sued her employer of 38 years. “I couldn’t stand it.”

Narumi and others say they were repeatedly passed over for promotions. They kept failing the company tests for promotions partly because they never received the training that men received, they said.

The women also suspected favoritism because many of the men would mysteriously pass the tests when they became a certain age.

Progress has been slow in Japan to correct sexual inequalities on campuses, in the office and elsewhere.

Although more and more women work alongside men, they tend to be assigned tedious chores, such as paperwork or serving tea, and are never given the same opportunities as their male colleagues. Furthermore, they are often expected to quit when they get married or have children.

“This is a landmark victory,” said Hisako Konno, an attorney for the women. “This is a victory for all talented women who want to do the same work as men.”

One woman was not awarded damages in the lower court because some of the men in her section had also been passed over for promotions, and the upper court upheld that ruling, Konno said.