Safety is the Top Priority


Below please find segment V, dated 8-5-24, explaining the truth about why Toray Plastics America (TPA) sued me in December 2018 when they claimed a common reader could identify TPA in my book, Successful Leaders Aren't Bullies, released September of 2018.

TPA terminated me in September 2017 in retaliation for sharing my TPA shooting threat investigation with a Japanese Toray Expat who requested it. 

The US Occupational Safety and Health Act  prohibits employers from retaliating against employees for exercising their rights under the act, such as raising a safety concern with their employer.

Within a week of my being hired in October 2016 as a full time Toray employee to continue the management development services I had provided Toray America as a consultant for the previous eleven years, and to provide hr services to a particular plant, several concerned employees working at this plant visited my office, located closest to the plant's entrance.

Many visitors mentioned five people over the previous two years left the role I now occupied.  This fact was never shared in my interviews.  Several more expressed disgust and anger over current plant  management practices. 

One visitor claimed to have witnessed workplace shooting homicides at two separate previous employers, a statement I found incredible, but proved to be true.  This person stated the culture in this Toray plant was far worse than at these tragic sites.  They stated a majority of the Toray plant workers owned guns and threatened to use them.

I asked if they heard anyone make this  specific threat, stating a worker with a gun planned to bring a gun to work to shoot up our plant.  They had not heard this specific threat, but heard it suggested and was certain a shooting at the plant was inevitable.

I thanked him for his sharing his observations and told him I was required to elevate his concern. He was relieved the issue was being addressed

The response I received from my superiors was troubling.  They asked who made the claim and stated I needed to learn who to trust.  I let them know their response made me uncomfortable.  So, they asked me to conduct employee and management investigations at their five sites.

Next:  What was revealed in the shooting threat investigation and how then Governor and current Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo was involved.

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