Texaco's chairman apologized for racist remarks several top executives made and said he hoped consumers would not turn their backs on the oil giant. Some critics have called for a boycott.
Chairman Peter Bijur said he has suspended two of the executives who still work for the company. He also confirmed that Texaco has received subpoenas from a federal grand jury investigating whether executives illegally destroyed documents on minority hiring."I want to offer an apology to our fellow employees who were rightly offended by these statements . . . and to people throughout America and elsewhere around the world," Bijur said Wednesday at a news conference.
He outlined a series of steps to review company policies on discrimination and better educate workers.
While he apologized and said he hoped the comments would not hurt sales, a dozen ministers and business leaders in San Diego urged consumers to boycott the company by cutting up their gas station credit cards and selling stock until Texaco's leadership is replaced.
The racist statements were recorded in 1994 by an executive, Richard Lundwall, who attended meetings of the company's finance department. After Lundwall's position was eliminated, he retired, then later turned the tapes over to a lawyer suing Texaco for discrimination.
Lundwall and others at the meetings referred to black workers as "niggers" and "black jelly beans," mocked a Kwanza celebration and discussed destroying the documents on minority hiring, according to court papers in the discrimination lawsuit that came to light Monday.
Asked if the documents were shredded, Bijur said his legal team was "in the process of securing" them.
Bijur said he did not have "audible versions of the tapes" until Wednesday. Once he heard them, he said, he immediately suspended the two executives - Peter Meade and J. David Keough - who had attended the meetings and are still employed by the company.
They were suspended with pay pending the outcome of an internal investigation, Bijur said. Meade is assistant general manager of Texaco's fuel and marine marketing division and Keough is chief financial officer of the Texaco subsidiary, Heddington Insurance.
Keough, who lives in Bermuda, has an unlisted phone number. Meade declined to comment from his suburban New York home.
Lundwall was among the executives who had given depositions in a $540 million class-action lawsuit brought on behalf of 1,500 black workers of the oil company who claim they were denied promotions and advancement opportunities because of their race.
In San Diego, George Mitrovich, co-founder of the San Diego Coalition for Equality, said he and his wife cut up their credit cards and mailed the pieces to Bijur.
"A boycott will send a clear message: You engage in an act of racism . . . at your economic peril, which sadly is the only threat some people fear," Mitrovich said.
Texaco hired former U.S. Court of Appeals Judge A. Leon Higginbotham to review the company's fairness policies. The company is also creating a committee to be headed by New York University's former president, John Brademas, to review Texaco's diversity programs.