ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, November 5, 1996 TAG: 9611050073
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WHITE PLAINS, N.Y.
SOURCE: Associated Press
OIL COMPANY executives were recorded using racist terms for black employees.
Every six months or so, when Texaco executives met to discuss the finance department's minority hiring practices, Richard Lundwall would slip a tiny tape recorder into his jacket.
Lundwall didn't bother telling his colleagues. He says he just wanted to make sure the minutes he kept were accurate.
But now that he has lost his job, it may turn out that what he really had in his jacket was a smoking gun.
He and other Texaco executives were caught on tape vilifying black employees as ``niggers'' and ``black jelly beans,'' mocking a Kwanzaa celebration and discussing destroying documents related to a $520million race-discrimination suit, court papers allege.
The suit is a class action brought on behalf of 1,500 black employees of the oil company. The employees claim they were denied promotions and advancement opportunities because of their race.
Soon after a company consolidation cost Lundwall his job as senior coordinator of personnel services in Texaco's finance department, he went to the plaintiffs' attorneys with his collection of microcassettes.
The impact was immediate. In papers filed in federal court last week, the plaintiffs asked for a default judgment - that is, a ruling against Texaco without benefit of a trial. A hearing is scheduled for Nov.22.
The tapes, as transcribed in court papers, show that in 1994, after Texaco had been asked to produce any documents relevant to the discrimination case, executives spoke frankly about papers that should be hidden or destroyed. Lundwall identified the speakers on the tapes, according to court papers.
Discussing a collection of documents on minority hiring, a man identified as Robert Ulrich, Texaco's treasurer and head of the department, says: ``There is no point in even keeping the restricted version anymore. All it could do is get us in trouble.''
To which Lundwall replies, ``Let me shred this thing and any other restricted version like it.''
A man identified as J. David Keough, senior assistant treasurer, looks at a chart of women and minorities and says: ``If we can't explain this thing, I mean, it shouldn't be in there. If it was a favorable chart, you'd want to retain it.''
Later, Ulrich says: ``We're going to purge the [expletive] out of these books, though. We're not going to have any damn thing that we don't need to be in them.''
Ulrich, now retired, said Monday, ``I'm sorry, I can't talk about this.'' Keough did not immediately return a call to his home in Bermuda.
Texaco Chairman Peter Bijur, addressing all employees by satellite, called the revelations ``a sad day for Texaco.''
If confirmed, ``the rank insensitivity offends me deeply,'' he said. ``I am sorry for our employees and both ashamed and outraged that such a thing happened to our family.''
In his 1994 deposition, Lundwall said that the subject of the meetings was ``what can we do to enhance Texaco's position in minority representation at higher position grades, managers and supervisory levels.''
But when conversation at a meeting turns to race relations, Ulrich says: ``This diversity thing. You know how black jelly beans agree.'' And Lundwall responds: ``That's funny. All the black jelly beans seem to be glued to the bottom of the bag.''
Apparently referring to a Kwanzaa celebration of black culture, Ulrich says, ``I'm still having trouble with Hanukkah. Now, we have Kwanzaa. [Expletive] niggers, they [expletive] all over us with this.''
Cyrus Mehri, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said in an affidavit that Lundwall had called him, unsolicited, on Aug. 1 to say his employment had been terminated by Texaco and he had information that might be of interest.
A call to Lundwall's attorney, Peter Gass, was not immediately returned.
Another attorney for the plaintiffs, Daniel Berger, said he is not sure if the documents were in fact destroyed. He wants to question the executives involved.
Texaco announced it had hired Michael Armstrong, a top New York lawyer, to investigate the allegations. If they're true, Texaco said, it ``will take appropriate disciplinary action against the employees, which could include termination.''
In June, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found that Texaco had granted significantly fewer promotions between 1992 and 1994 to blacks than to other workers.
LENGTH: Medium: 86 linesby CNB