Looking Back: When Nintendo Was Accused of Discrimination

On January 4, 1990 -- twenty years ago today -- Nintendo of America responded to ongoing racism accusations and protests by adopting its first affirmative action policy. The policy, according to the group leading the protests, was inadequate, leading to even harsher criticism in the future.

The trouble started the previous year, when a group of 25 African American Nintendo employees took discrimination complaints to the Seattle CORE Group, a political watchdog organization. According to their complaints, Nintendo's workforce had fewer than 35 black employees out of around 1,600 total. Only ten of these were full-time employees, and none of them were supervisors.

"I've never considered myself an 'activist.' But it got to a point where I couldn't live with myself and keep working there,"Carey Wiggins, a former Nintendo temporary warehouse worker with a marketing degree, told theSeattle Times."I was passed over so many times. It was like a slap in the face to see everyone hired in front of me."

The Group sent a complaint to the Washington Employment Security Department and staged a protest at the Rainier Job Service Center (where a temp agency was interviewing prospects for Nintendo) after receiving an unsatisfactory response from Nintendo's Howard Lincoln, which leader Oscar Eason called"a bunch of nothing"that failed to address their complaints. The protest worked: the Commission stopped referring temporary employees to Nintendo for nearly a week while the charges were investigated and a meeting between Nintendo and the Core Group was arranged.

Nintendo's internal investigation revealed that the actual number of black employees among its 767-person full-time workforce (it didn't track minorities among its 900+ temporary workers) was actually 24, or 3.1 percent -- three of them managers. By comparison, the overall percentage of black employees in the counties Nintendo employed from was, at the time, 3.6 percent. Overall minority employment at the company was found to be 14 percent, which was actually higher than the entire minority population of the area, which was 13 percent.

"If you have basically the same percentage in your work force as the general population, it means you're not discriminating,"said Nintendo's Phil Rogers to a Seattle Times reporter."There is no smell."

Part of these accusations could be related to America's xenophobic nature toward Japanese companies at the time. Other companies under similar fire included Honda, Toyota, and Nikko Securities. Still, even Nintendo admitted that its numbers could be improved.

"There certainly is an indication there were a few problems that needed correcting, so I think Mr. Eason was warranted in bringing this kind of information to us,"Nintendo senior vice presicent Howard Lincoln told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer."I just feel bad that we were not able to get on top of it immediately."

Nintendo announced its new affirmative action policy on January 4 of 1991, but according to the Group, it was inadequate.

"They've drafted a generic plan that is skewed towards training and awareness, but has less of any kind of solid content,"said Eason."We had hoped to work out an agreement where African Americans would be retailing their products."

Such a policy, called a"fair-share agreement,"was already employed by companies like Burger King and Coca-Cola. Unfortunately, this was impossible for Nintendo to agree to, as Nintendo did not operate its own retail shops; it sold its products to independent dealers.

"We can't agree that some percentage of our dealers will be minority firms,"said Lincoln."That's not the way it works."

Regardless, the CORE Group's spat with Nintendo continued. Nintendo placed job ads in minority media and held job fairs especially for African Americans, and CORE continued causing a stir in the press.

"They are not interested in improving their working environment,"Eason told a reporter."A sister went out there to work for them. While she was reading the affirmative action plan, some Japanese came out and threw something at her."

By December of 1991, according to Eason, Nintendo stopped returning the Group's calls."They said, you guys are talking to the press and we're not going to do anything,"said Eason."This is as much as we'll give you."

Eason protested the sale of the Seattle Mariners to Nintendo in 1992, but this appears to be the end of his public battle with the company's hiring practices. He went on to serve for a time as the president of the Seattle branch of the NAACP, and currently serves on theCommission on African American Affairsfor the state of Washington.

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