Interviews with related parties revealed that a senior employee in his 50s at the Saku Regional Union Fire Department repeatedly engaged in acts of power harassment, such as making multiple subordinates give him massages. The fire department is expected to take disciplinary action soon.
According to the Saku Regional Union Fire Department and related parties, a senior employee in his 50s would call his subordinates to a private room during working hours and give them massages for about an hour at a time, and even at his previous workplace, he would massage them multiple times on his days off. It is said that he called his subordinates to work on building a new hut.
This kind of behavior has been determined to constitute power harassment in an investigation by the fire department headquarters and a third-party organization, and in previous investigations, senior officials have explained that they did not think it constituted harassment.
This senior employee had previously been disciplined for violent behavior toward another employee, and the fire department plans to take disciplinary action within the month regarding the power harassment that was discovered this time.
In the future, the Saku Regional Union Fire Department will invite external instructors to provide training to staff at the level of section chief and above on how to interact with subordinates and harassment, in an effort to prevent recurrence.