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Texaco settles bias suit
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November 15, 1996: 5:30 p.m. ET
Judge OKs $175 million settlement of race-discrimination complaint
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Texaco agreed Friday to a $175 million settlement of a racial-discrimination lawsuit filed on behalf of the oil giant's minority employees.
Texaco agreed to pay $145 million to plaintiffs, and to also spend $30 million of programs to improve the racial situation within the corporation.
Texaco has also agreed to an independent tribunal, which will review and monitor any future race-discrimination allegations.
A judge approved the settlement Friday afternoon.
Six Texaco workers originally filed the case in 1994, but the case grew to cover 1,400 employees.
Although plaintiffs bought the suit two years ago, progress toward a settlement had been slow until last week.
That's when plaintiffs' lawyers released an secretly made audio tape of Texaco executives allegedly making racist remarks and plotting to destroy documents usable in the case.
The tape allegedly recorded executives using what plaintiffs maintains had been crude racial slurs.
However, Texaco claimed an expert enhancement of the tape failed to demonstrate the executives had actually used slurs.
Still, civil-rights groups threatened to launch demonstrations, boycotts and a campaign to convince institutional investors to sell Texaco shares unless the company settled the case by Saturday.
Kweisi Mfume, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, called Friday's agreement the "first step towards racial reconciliation. It calls our attention to the need to be eternally vigilant."
Plaintiff lawyers said Friday afternoon that they were attempting to reach civil-rights organizations to have the groups call off planned Saturday demonstrations.
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