A disgruntled worker slammed his car into employees at a Mazda factory yesterday, killing one and injuring 10, stunning Japan just two years after an autoworker went on a deadly rampage in Tokyo.
Toshiaki Hikiji, 42, was arrested about an hour later on attempted murder charges after fleeing in his car from Mazda’s Ujina plant in Hiroshima Prefecture, police said.
Media reports said Hikiji was a contract worker who had been let go in April. He bore a grudge against the automaker and went there with a knife with the intention to kill, they said.
However, Mazda Motor Corp spokesman Kotaro Minagawa said Hikiji had quit in April on his own, citing personal reasons, after working just eight days at the plant, and there had been no reports of troubles.
The rampage has revived memories of a stabbing spree in Tokyo’s jam-packed electronics shopping district two years ago, also by an angry autoworker, who killed seven people when he slammed a truck into a crowd and then stabbed onlookers.
Hikiji ignored security at the gate and drove into the plant as workers were arriving in the morning.
Mazda identified the dead man as Hiroshi Hamada, 39, one of its permanent employees.
One male worker remained in critical condition, although details weren’t available, Minagawa said.
“I pray for the spirit of the man who was killed and pray for the recovery of the 10 who were injured,” Mazda president Takashi Yamanouchi said in a statement.
Koetsu Aizawa, professor of economics at Saitama University, said the discriminatory dual system of employment was common at major Japanese companies because regular workers, hired under a lifetime employment system, can’t be fired.
“Japan still needs to foster the idea of equal pay for equal work,” he said. “What many Japanese feel is that regular workers do little work but have big attitudes and get big money. It is a huge social problem.”
At Hiroshima-based Mazda, contract workers such as Hikiji are hired on a six-month basis, but have contracts directly with Mazda and not with referral companies, which the automaker stopped using last year, Minagawa said.
“They help us when things get busy because production fluctuates,” he said of the contract workers, but declined to disclose details of the wage differences.
The Ujina plant is Mazda’s main auto assembly plant.
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