ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, November 22, 1996 TAG: 9611220074
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEW YORK
SOURCE: MAGGIE JACKSON ASSOCIATED PRESS
IN THE WAKE OF TEXACO'S $176.5 million settlement, companies are taking a more aggressive approach to racism within their own walls.
After consultant Robert Hayles made a recent presentation to a Midwest corporation, an audience member approached him. ``You're pretty smart for a black person,'' the participant said.
Hayles was speaking about diversity in the work force.
From the degrading comments Hayles says he routinely hears to a ``glass ceiling'' keeping minorities below management, blacks and other minorities face daily debasement in the workplace - even as their numbers in companies grow.
To many in corporate America, the recent debacle at Texaco Inc. comes as no surprise.
``Racism is alive and well in society; why should corporate America be any different?'' asks Jacquelyn Gates, vice president of the Office of Ethics and Business Conduct at Nynex Corp., a regional telephone company.
Texaco's chairman and chief executive, Peter Bijur, says the bigotry at his company represents just the ``tip of the iceberg'' of corporate prejudice nationwide.
An estimated 70 percent of the largest 1,000 corporations now have programs to help diversify the work force and enable employees of different races and backgrounds to work well together.
Yet most diversity work consists of training sessions that last a day, hardly enough time to change many minds, much less the corporate culture. And management often acts to satisfy laws, rather than out of a true belief in a diverse work force.
Companies have grown more diverse. Groups other than white males in the work force have increased 63 percent during the last decade because of affirmative action and demographics, says the Society of Human Resource Management.
Still, white men accounted for 90 percent of the senior ranks of all occupations last year, even though they made up 41 percent of the entire work force, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. By 2005, white men will have even less of a role in the workplace, representing just 38 percent of the nation's workers, the government agency estimates.
Most racism at companies isn't as stark as revealed at Texaco, where a secret tape recording of executives belittling blacks led to a $176.5 million race-discrimination settlement, the biggest on record.
Instead, discrimination is often subtle. Hayles, for example, was once paid less than a white predecessor for doing the same job.
Patricia Digh of the Society for Human Resource Management says whites may not even know they have prejudices. ``I may not have told a racist joke, but I may have laughed at some,'' she says. ``Racism is not always an overt act.''
That in part explains why diversity programs, although widespread, often don't work.
Whereas prejudices are deep-rooted, most diversity programs consist of a short sensitivity training seminar.
At Texaco, top executives last year attended a two-day diversity ``learning experience'' that was also given to managers. The White Plains, N.Y.-based company has also given managers equal opportunity and sexual harassment seminars.
Under the Texaco settlement, the company will pay $35 million to set up a court-monitored task force that will create companywide diversity, mentoring and ombudsman programs.
The company will also change its employee appraisal system and post more jobs nationwide to help break down the glass ceiling for minorities.
Minorities currently make up 6.4 percent of Texaco's executives, up from 2 percent in 1991 but still a tiny fraction. Blacks make up only 2 percent of executives.
Successful diversity programs, advocates say, should not only bring more diverse people into the work force but make full use of all workers' talents.
For such efforts to succeed, top management must firmly realize that diversity is not only right and necessary but that it's good for the company's future.
Successful diversity programs also have teeth. The compensation of senior management at Nynex, and a select few other companies, is tied to diversity. And Nynex managers are evaluated not only by supervisors but by peers and underlings.
For now, companies that derided diversity have had a loud wake-up call. And those that were working at it have a reason to redouble their efforts.
Days after the settlement, Nynex's chairman sat down for a previously scheduled meeting with Gates and others from employee resource groups. Texaco was at the top of the agenda.
``We committed that night to not rest on any of our laurels,'' Gates says. ``We've done a lot, but there's always room for improvement.''
CLOSER TO HOME
* First Union Corp. said the bank has had a program in place for several years to increase hiring and promotion of women and minorities. First Union actively recruits at traditionally black colleges and universities, said spokesman David Scanzoni. It has a minority internship program through which it hires.
* General Electric Co. said its practices and policies provide a diverse work force. The company is strongly committed to those policies now and in the future, said Mike Allee, spokesman at its industrial drive systems plant in Salem. GE has conducted diversity training for the entire staff in the past several years, and there is an active recruiting program for minorities.
- MAG POFF
LENGTH: Long : 106 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Jacquelyn Gates, a vice-president in NYNEX's ethicsby CNBdivision, talks during a minority management support meeting at the
company's New York offices.