ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, November 16, 1996 TAG: 9611180034
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WHITE PLAINS, N.Y.
SOURCE: Associated Press
Texaco agreed to pay $176.1 million to settle a 2-year-old race discrimination suit Friday, just 11 days after it was disclosed that top executives had been caught on tape belittling blacks and plotting to destroy documents in the case.
At a news conference in Washington, an attorney for the plaintiffs said Texaco Inc. will pay $115 million in cash to the 1,500 current and former black workers who sued, $26.1 million in pay raises over five years for black employees, and $35 million for sensitivity and diversity training programs.
``With this litigation behind us, we can now move forward on our broader, urgent mission to make Texaco a model of workplace opportunity for all men and women,'' Peter Bijur, Texaco's chairman and chief executive, said in a statement.
The lawsuit, filed in 1994, sought as much as $520 million on behalf of blacks who claimed that a ``good old boy'' network at Texaco reserved the best promotions and biggest raises for whites.
In court papers, former and current employees complained of repeatedly being passed over and being subjected to racial slights and slurs. Blacks were called ``orangutans'' and ``porch monkeys'' to their faces, they said. One was invited to join in a round of golf - as a caddy.
The pressure on Texaco mounted dramatically last week after the plaintiffs claimed to have a tape of executives using the word ``niggers'' and ``black jelly beans,'' mocking the black cultural festival Kwanzaa and plotting to hide or shred documents sought by the plaintiffs.
The recordings were made by an executive of Texaco's financial department who gave the tapes to the plaintiffs after he lost his job in a downsizing.
Prosecutors immediately opened a grand jury investigation into whether documents were in fact destroyed, Texaco suspended two executives and apologized, and civil rights activist Rev. Jesse Jackson called for a boycott of Texaco and urged stockholders to sell their shares.
An investigator hired by Texaco said an electronic enhancement of the recordings found that the executives did not utter the word ``niggers,'' but ``St. Nicholas.'' The investigator also said the ``jelly bean'' reference was not derogatory, but a term commonly used in diversity training programs.
However, Texaco acknowledged that the tone of the conversation was still troubling, and it did not dispute that the executives talked of trying to hide evidence.
The transcript contained in court papers quoted former Texaco treasurer Robert Ulrich as saying of the company's hiring records: ``We're going to purge the [expletive] out of these books.''
Jackson had warned that picketing would begin today if there was no settlement. He also demanded the White Plains-based oil giant produce a companywide plan to resolve minorities' complaints about promotion and pay.
Texaco stock finished Friday's trading up $2.75 at $101.121/2 on the New York Stock Exchange. Word of the settlement got out late Friday afternoon before the stock market closed.
LENGTH: Medium: 61 linesby CNB