 |
|
|
| * Letter for Mr. Ghosn [Japanese] * TOP PAGE |
|
* Letter for Mr. Carlos Ghosn - President of Nissan automobile company To: Mr. Carlos Ghosn From: Akio Kuroki, Journalist --Address of sender is omitted. Mr. Ghosn, I am Akio Kuroki, a Japanese journalist. Today, I am writing this letter as I believe it is important to include your view in the article on “ Lynching Murder In Tochigi”, the case that the victim, Masakazu, Sudo (age 19), the employee of the Nissan, your company, was killed by the criminal, Takahiro Uemura[*], which turned out to be the alumni and co-worker of Sudo-san at the Second Casting Department of the Tochigi Factory. As a matter of fact, I’ve been tracking the case for sometime, and already written an article on Shukan Asahi, a weekly magazine published by the Asahi Newspaper, one of the leading newspaper company in Japan. I’ve also finished writing my book on the case and the book will be published on April 23, 2001, from a publishing company called Soshi-sha. I would like to make a couple of questions regarding the case here, so that I can include your view in the upcoming article on Shukan Asahi. I believe you, the top management of the company, are the person who should be responsible to answer these questions. As the answers could damage the CI and reliability of your company, I recommend all the questions be answered by yourself. I would be appreciated if you could send me the answers by the end of April. Your answers will be on the article of Shukan Asahi. Now, auto manufacturers are making and selling a car that carries a life on them. However, the way Nissan responded to the case raised questions on how they see “a life”. To clarify your view as well as your company’s, please answer the specific questions listed below. 1. Have you received a report on this case from your staff? 2. On November 24, 1999, Sudo-san had been made resigned by company policy 85, item 6, the “Rule for Reasonable Lay Off”, which enforces the employee to resign without receiving retirement allowance. This was the same measure applied to Uemura, the murderer. Who decided to apply the measure to Sudo-san, and how was it decided? 3. Sudo-san turned out to be innocent after the truth revealed, but even so, Nissan did not withdraw the application of the measure. Why? 4. The parents of Sudo-san had a strong sense of dissatisfaction, as their son had been thrown out of the company after his name and honour destroyed, and even after a year since their son’s been found innocent, the honor has not been recovered and so is his retirement allowance. The parents changed their car from Nissan Laurel to the one produced by Toyota. As a head of the company, could you explain us how you see the situation at this moment? Enclosed please find the information I gathered during my tracking. Please refer to it as you try to remember the case and answer the questions. Thank you very much and best regards, Akio Kuroki Outline of the Case Sudo-san joined Nissan in April, 1999. In September the same year, he was called by Uemura, one of the alumni, who told him that he bumped his car into that of a gangster, and wanted to borrow money. Sudo-san lent him Yen70,000 in front of Masaru Fujiwara[*] and Masaki Matsushita[*], the confederates, who decided to see Sudo-san as a lamb (money supplier) and locked him up, until his death on December 2. Uemura, Fujiwara and Matsushita enforced Sudo-san to borrow money from his parents, acquaintances as well as colleagues at Nissan and used the money for their entertainment, i.e. drinking, prostitution, travels, etc. The total amount of money they took from Sudo-san was more than Yen 6 MM in total, and bullied him by hitting, kicking, blazing, and pouring a hot water on him. At the factory, Sudo-san’s absence without any consent became an issue, along with his borrowing money from his colleagues. A notice was sent through the factory to prohibit the money borrowing/lending among workers, while an investigation for Sudo-san’s long absence started to take place. Hearings conducted as the major process of the investigation to the colleagues who lent money to Sudo-san, by HR person in charge and Mr.S[*], an OB of police who belonged to General Affairs at the time. Sudo-san, who was from a rural part of Japan, had a serious personality with an attitude full of integrity. He was never absent without gaining former consent until he got locked up. On the other hand, Uemura hardly appeared in workplace, saying he’d suffered from the after-effect of the car crash he went through right after he started his career in Nissan. Some of the testimony obtained by the hearings hinted a possibility of threatening against Sudo-san, as the colleagues, at the time of approaching Sudo-san to lend their money, had found “couple of people surrounded Sudo-san together with Uemura, who seemed to have making threats to Sudo-san”. But those testimonies were not taken seriously. The final summary reported “Sudo-san seems to be fooling around with Uemura”. It should be noted that Uemura was actually called for the investigation as well. On October 18, the mother of Sudo-san came to Nissan to talk about her son’s long absence without consent. Mr.S and the mother went to police together, the summary of the testimonies in hand of Mr.S. As the mother was asked by the General Affairs Dept. to hand out the summary to the police, she did so as she filed a “Request for Search of Missing Whereabouts” for his son. After the reveal of the truth, one of the top managers of the Tochigi Prefectural Police testified that the “preoccupation created by the summary caused a delay in the investigation for the case”. One of the reason for this case to have raised people’s attention was the police’s idleness (i.e. neglect which ultimately killed Sudo-san) despite repeated requests for search made by Sudo-san’s parents’ who sensed something extraordinary in his son’s situation. As a matter of fact, your company played a role in creating the police’s attitude. Let me be more straight. I, actually, am suspicious, about that your company might have played the role on purpose. In other words, your company might have asked the police not to take any action against the request made by the parents, as, Japanese company tend to consider it’s a shame for their staff being treated by police......there’s a word called “keisatsu-zata”, meaning police affairs, and Japanese people has a bad image towards this police affairs. People in General Affairs at Tochigi Factory might have approached to the police to prevent their action, and I believe I have many evidences that can back up the theory. Anyway, why couldn’t your people see the “dramatic change” of your serious employee, Sudo-san? Also, why did the testimonies that hinted the possibility of threatening against Sudo-san eliminated from the summary report? What was Mr.S, the OB of police, doing at the time? According to the PR Dept. of Tochigi Factory, Mr.S “was in charge of instructing transportation safety to employees”, but I got more than one testimony which implied Mr.S’s involvement in negotiation with police in various scenes. Meanwhile, Mr.Y(*), the manager of Sudo-san, insulted Sudo-san’s parents by saying “my son is bad too, but not as bad as yours”. Leaded by HR personalities, series of calls were made to Sudo-san’s parents demanding the submittal of “Petition for Resignation”. As the parents were occupied to find out their son whom they believed to have entangled in some weird incident, did not have a room to think about it. For some period, they received the call almost everyday from the HR Dept. of the Tochigi Factory. On November 24, Nissan made Sudo-san resigned by the Company Policy (Article 85, item 6), which stipulated the condition for lay off, saying the lay off can be justified when “the conduct of theft, violence, threat and other similar practice within the company site were discovered”. This was exactly the same measure applied to Uemura, the murderer who was sentenced to life imprisonment. Why the measure taken against the murderer should have been applied to Sudo-san as well? Sudo-san was killed on December 2, by the juveniles who scared the case to be revealed to police. The person who finally terminated Sudo-san’s life by choking his neck, was Uemura, the employee of your company. When the outline of the case became clear, the managements of Tochigi Factory knew that Sudo-san was unable to come to the factory as he was locked up by Uemura, no matter how much he wished to come. However, no changes has made to the treatment taken to Sudo-san even after a year passed by. No one from your company attended Sudo-san’s first anniversary from death, not a flower was sent. Nissan has not made explanation about the case to their employee, let alone to outer world. As a mater of fact, many employees at the Tochigi Factory do not know that the criminal/victim of the case used to be the employees of Nissan. Lastly, I would like to note that Sudo-san’s parents are extremely dissatisfied by the series of responses and measures taken by Nissan for the case. END |