Refocusing On Diversity After Texaco Incident

The racial remarks by senior Texaco officials, reported last week, may spur Puget Sound companies to re-examine their own race relations, say company officials.

"The Texaco case is an unfortunate sequence of events but confirms in our minds the importance of building an awareness among all employees about diversity issues," Boeing spokesman Peter Conte said.

On Friday, Texaco agreed to pay $176.1 million to settle a 2-year-old race-discrimination suit after it was disclosed that hidden tapes captured four senior Texaco executives referring to African-American employees as "black jelly beans." The same officials also complained of having to adjust to the demands of minorities.

"I think something like this could happen anywhere," said Roger Eigsti, chairman of Safeco. "You can never say never. But I think it is extremely unlikely at Safeco. We have no written policy that you shall never say anything about anybody, but we spend one heck of a lot of time in diversity training."

The Texaco incident may serve as a wake-up call to other companies that diversity is not just a policy but a growing reality for companies across the country, experts say.

U.S. Census Bureau numbers show that in 15 years, 85 percent of the growth of the work force will be composed of people of color, women and immigrants. And the so-called Generation X has 30 million fewer U.S. workers than the baby-boom generation. That means companies such as Boeing, Microsoft and Safeco are, and will continue to be, hiring more immigrants, women and people of color.

It makes smart business sense to reflect a culturally diverse work force, but it also requires companies to reshape their values.

"I think organizations need to re-examine whether they've paid lip service by doing a one-time training and explore how they can develop an ongoing process that really changes workplace behavior," said Elmer Dixon, senior associate with Executive Diversity Services of Seattle.

Boeing's commercial airplane division, for example, decided to re-examine its diversity policies early last year to determine "where we were and where we want to be," Conte said. Promoting a "barrier-free" work environment, he said, is a high priority of chief executive Phil Condit.

That effort spurred a revised Boeing diversity strategy that is now companywide. The awareness training involves two seminars and a video presentation and began with the company's senior executives.

For all companies, the Texaco incident raises doubts about whether senior management is truly committed to following its own stated policies on affirmative action and diversity - doubts long harbored among minority employees.

"You have companies (that) have recruited minorities in the past and have been successful at playing the numbers game," said Ernie Dunston, a retired Seattle-area store manager for Sears, Roebuck & Co. and an African American.

"But the vast majority of minorities are not represented in the full spectrum of the corporation," he said.

Microsoft reinforces the importance of a diverse work force through performance reviews of its senior executives. It asks: "What are you doing to understand and value diversity in your organization?"

"That forces the senior management to understand that we look at this as a business issue," said Randy Massengale, senior diversity manager for Microsoft.

Microsoft employees also are responsible for promoting diversity. The software company has 13 different chartered diversity groups such as Blacks at Microsoft, a diversity advisory council and an internal Web site called Diversity Net.

All of this is designed to "help our company understand and value differences," Massengale said.

Despite the efforts of many Puget Sound area companies to support affirmative action and diversity programs, records show that racial bigotry in the workplace is a reality here, just as it is at Texaco and other out-of-state companies.

"I think that because we feel Seattle is so progressive, it causes people to be naive about their own racism," Dixon said.

Last year, the Washington Equal Employment Opportunities Commission received 326 employee complaints of racial discrimination by employers. The Washington Human Rights Commission reported 430 racial complaints involving employment, housing and other incidents.

"It happens more often than anyone of us would care to admit," said Jeffrey Needle, a Seattle attorney specializing in civil-rights cases. "But the incidents of racism can be diminished by responsible corporate officials acting in good faith."

Several recent local discrimination cases underscore the dangers for a company when its managers ignore complaints of racial discrimination:

-- A King County Superior Court jury last year found that two managers for the Men's Wearhouse harassed an Asian-American colleague because of his race and awarded him $94,500. The company is appealing the decision and has dismissed the two managers.

-- A federal jury in January found that an African-American salesman had been subjected to a racially hostile environment on the sales floor of the Southcenter J.C. Penney store and that management had been negligent by not correcting the problem. He received $1.5 million in damages.

-- In the past four years, retailing giant Nordstrom has been hit by several lawsuits alleging that the company discriminated against African Americans in hiring, promotion and training at stores. The suits have since been dismissed, dropped or settled.

In 1992, the Black Dollar Days Task Force - a local community organization - gave Nordstrom its dubious Bull Connor award, citing a litany of complaints from African Americans. Connor was the Birmingham, Ala., police commissioner who ordered the use of police dogs and fire hoses against civil-rights marchers in the 1960s.

Nordstrom officials said the company has a strict policy that prohibits any form of discrimination in the workplace. The company defends its minority-hiring record, saying minorities represent 34 percent of its nationwide work force and 21 percent of its managers.

"We work hard to be inclusive of our employees and of our customers," said Brooke White, a spokeswoman for Nordstrom.

One example is the company's efforts to contract with minority and women suppliers, she said. Since 1989, the company has spent $1 billion with them. And in its new markets, Nordstrom organizes job fairs for minority companies to explain the retailer's bidding rules.

But companies still have to go beyond outside business relationships. They need to promote more minorities into the boardroom to reflect society better, said one frequent critic of corporations.

"To me, it is unfair for corporations to continue to ask white men to develop corporate policies and positions for what has become a multidimensional, multicultural social reality in America," said the Rev. Robert Jeffrey Sr., executive director of the Black Dollar Days Task Force and pastor of New Hope Baptist Church in Seattle. "It's asking them to do the impossible."

If anything, the Texaco incident shows that integrating the work force will remain one of the single biggest challenges for American business.

At Starbucks, said diversity manager May Cheng, top company executives not only support a culturally diverse work force, but many also are women and men of color. That means diversity is a priority.

"You can do a lot of talking, but if your senior vice president doesn't support it, it doesn't get done," Cheng said. "In order to have a successful company, you have to have a culture that embraces differences and that is inclusive of everyone."

But for many in upper echelons of management - and throughout society - changing attitudes and beliefs can be difficult to achieve.

"Bigotry is in the heart and in the mind," said Thomas Jones, professor of business ethics for the University of Washington School of Business. "You can eliminate some of the manifestations of it, but eliminating the phenomena requires changing human characteristics, and that's an enormously difficult thing to do."