ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, February 22, 1997 TAG: 9702240090
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WHITE PLAINS, N.Y.
SOURCE: Associated Press
A federal judge refused Friday to reopen the Texaco race-discrimination case to hear from lesser-paid black employees who thought they should have been included in the company's $176 million settlement.
Texaco settled the discrimination suit in November, soon after the disclosure of secret tape recordings on which executives were heard demeaning black employees and discussing tampering with evidence sought by the plaintiffs.
Texaco Inc., one of the nation's biggest oil companies, endured a boycott, revamped its workplace procedures, fired one executive and punished three others. A criminal investigation continues.
Early this month, six black employees filed a motion saying they were led to believe their interests were being represented in the class-action suit. Not until a settlement was reached, they said, did they learn that only certain black employees would be receiving money from Texaco.
Lawyers for Texaco and the original plaintiffs opposed the motion.
``It's impractical at this late point in time for this court to renegotiate the settlement to add additional persons or expand the class,'' Judge Charles Brieant said. He said the claim that the class was defined too narrowly is no reason to hold up ``hard-fought benefits'' to the original plaintiffs.
The proposed settlement limits the class to ``African-Americans employed in a salaried position subject to the Texaco Merit Salary Program'' between 1991 and 1996. If approved by Brieant, it would include a payout of $115 million - less lawyers' fees and expenses - to 1,342 people. They could get average payments of about $60,000. A final hearing on the settlement is scheduled for March18.
Of the six workers who tried to intervene, five are paid hourly rather than salaried, and the one salaried worker is not covered by the merit program, which allegedly discriminated against blacks.
Their lawyer, Britt Monts of Dallas, said that once the civil suit was filed in 1994, black workers who felt they had been discriminated against had reason to feel they would be included. ``We believe we were given an invitation to this party and turned away at the door,'' he said.
But Brieant said no particular class had ever been certified before the settlement was reached. The employees who are not included remain free to sue on their own or as a new class, he said.
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