ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, November 15, 1996 TAG: 9611150039
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WHITE PLAINS, N.Y.
SOURCE: JIM FITZGERALD Associated Press
MANY SAY there is still a great deal of progress left to be made within companies that are serious about reducing racism.
The scissored credit cards, the sold-off stock and the cloud of shame that dims the Texaco star may spur other corporations to re-examine their own race relations.
``Texaco certainly will be discussed in our diversity training,'' said PepsiCo spokeswoman Elaine Franklin. ``We basically sell to everybody in the world, and we insist on sensitivity. We are very much aware.''
Christopher Springham, a spokesman for Mobil Oil Corp. in Fairfax, Va., would not comment specifically on the impact of the Texaco incident, but said: ``It's not an issue of avoiding embarrassment, but of reaching the goal of inclusion. We, too, have much more to accomplish in this area.''
Several other companies said no particular memos had been written about Texaco's problems. Melinda McMullen of IBM said the computer giant's diversity programs are often reinforced with regular workshops. ``We don't see what happened at Texaco as affecting us.''
But experts in business ethics said it should be a rude reminder to some.
``This may serve as a wake-up call to other companies,'' said David Messick, professor of ethics at Northwestern University. ``A lot of companies get complacent. They believe they're good, moral companies. But the price is eternal vigilance.''
``Don't wait for your employees to go'' to the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission with complaints, he suggested.
``Get your HR [human resources] people to talk to blacks, Hispanics, women,'' he said. ``See if their color, their accent, their gender is prompting any discrimination. If companies are serious about integrating these people into their work force, then they want to make sure this is working.''
Texaco says its performance in minority hiring has improved over the years. And its chairman, Peter Bijur, has vehemently denounced the evidence of racism in a tape recording that became part of a $540 million race-discrimination case. He has suspended employees and begun various internal investigations.
His measures did little to take Texaco out of the path of employees, stockholders, customers and public officials scandalized by the transcript, which also alleges executives plotted to destroy incriminating documents.
Black leaders launched a boycott. Stock prices fell. Shareholders sued. State officials in New York and Texas threatened to sell millions of dollars of holdings in Texaco. A grand jury issued subpoenas to the company. Company credit cards were cut up in public.
Texaco, though prominent by virtue of its No. 14 rank on the Fortune 500 list of top corporations and its familiarity on the roads of America, is far from alone in the area of alleged corporate discrimination.
Wise companies should turn away from the Texaco spectacle and look inward to try to prevent anything similar from damaging their reputations, said Peter Madsen, executive director of the Center for Advancement of Applied Ethics at Carnegie-Mellon University.
Patricia Werhane, professor of business ethics at the University of Virginia, said: ``If I were running a company, the first thing I would do is look not at whom I hire, but at how well I'm promoting them. That's where you see discrimination, the glass ceiling. Then get at the roots of that. Even if people don't go around saying things like they did at Texaco, they act on such things.''
``It's very clear you have to work at this continually,'' said James Kuhn, a Columbia University expert on business ethics. ``Racial stereotypes are very deeply embedded in our culture, and that includes our corporate culture.''
LENGTH: Medium: 74 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. 1. Otis Chisley, a Texaco gas station owner inby CNBMonroe, La., and ex-NAACP president, is feeling the boycott. 2.
Texaco customer Jose Jimene of Lynn, Mass., says he holds no grudge
against station owners for the comments of Texaco officials.