ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, November 12, 1996 TAG: 9611120094
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WHITE PLAINS, N.Y.
SOURCE: Associated Press
THE RACIAL EXPLETIVE may not be on the tape, but the "unacceptable context and tone" remain, Texaco's chairman says.
The n-word used by a Texaco Inc. executive was ``Nicholas'' and not a racial slur, an investigator hired by the company to electronically enhance a tape of the conversation said Monday.
Company Chairman Peter Bijur said the finding doesn't change the ``unacceptable context and tone'' of the recorded conversation.
Plaintiffs in a $520 million discrimination lawsuit against Texaco claim former Texaco treasurer Robert Ulrich said ``nigger'' during a 1994 discussion of the suit among company executives.
Attorney Michael Armstrong, hired by Texaco to check out the tape, said Ulrich actually said ``poor St. Nicholas,'' a reference to Christmas, while disparaging the black cultural festival Kwanzaa.
``The phrase `nigger' just doesn't exist on the tape,'' said Armstrong, who enhanced a digitized version of the cassette recording, removing laughter that obscured some of Ulrich's words.
The comments have brought withering criticism against Texaco, and black leaders including the Rev. Jesse Jackson have threatened a boycott unless the company remedies the discrimination alleged by the 1,400 minority employees.
A federal grand jury is investigating whether executives illegally destroyed documents on minority hiring - a plan discussed during the tape-recorded conversation, according to the lawsuit.
Texaco is in formal talks to settle the lawsuit, perhaps as early as this week, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday, citing anonymous sources. The Journal also said federal prosecutors plan to file criminal charges against at least one individual in the Texaco case this week.
Bijur has suspended the two executives who were at the meeting and are still employed at Texaco, Peter Meade and David Keough. The company also suspended Ulrich's retirement benefits. His lawyer, Jonathan Rosner, said the new transcript showed his client has been done a ``disservice.''
Armstrong's report did not address the other task Texaco gave him - to find out if Texaco officials had tried to obstruct the plaintiffs' access to company documents on the hiring and promotion of blacks.
The lawsuit alleges that Ulrich also said during the meeting, ``We're going to purge the [expletive] out of these books, though. We're not going to have any [expletive] thing that we don't need to be in them.''
It also quotes a former executive, Richard Lundwall, who made the recording and gave it to the plaintiffs, as saying, ``Let me shred this thing and any other restricted version like it.''
Calls to plaintiffs' attorney Daniel Berger and the office of U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White were not returned Monday.
The lawsuit's version of the transcript also accuses Ulrich of calling black employees ``black jelly beans.''
Armstrong's report said that remark apparently was not intended as a racial slur, but stemmed from an analogy used in a speech attended by Texaco executives. The colors of the beans were used to refer to different races.
Bijur said his investigator's findings ``merely set the record straight as to the exact words spoken in the conversations, but they do not change the categorically unacceptable context and tone of these conversations.''
Jackson, who is scheduled to meet with Texaco officials today, said, ``To go from regrets to denial would be adding to the insult.''
``The problem is not just the language, the insult,'' Jackson said. ``The problem is a pattern of discrimination in employment, promotion, dealerships, all down the line.''
LENGTH: Medium: 70 linesby CNB