Texaco, Shell Workers Fight Discrimination

[Brian Hauk]

Texaco, Shell Workers Fight Discrimination
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from the Militant, vol.61/no.2 January 13, 1997

BY JERRY FREIWIRTH
HOUSTON - A threatened boycott of Texaco was called off
December 18 after the oil company promised increased hiring
of oppressed nationalities and women, and greater purchases
from businesses owned by these groups. The discrimination
fight at Texaco is one of several in the oil industry.
Democratic Party politician Jesse Jackson, Joseph Lowry,
president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference,
and National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People President Kweisi Mfume held a Washington, D.C. news
conference to announce the withdrawal of the boycott
threat. "There is now a sufficiently comprehensive and
workable plan to call off the consumer boycott," said
Jackson.
In November, a disgruntled company executive made public
tapes of a meeting of top Texaco executives. That meeting,
which was punctuated by remarks about "niggers" and "black
jelly beans," planned a cover-up of evidence concerning
Texaco's racist practices in the face of an
antidiscrimination lawsuit by Texaco employees.
In the wake of the ensuing national uproar, Texaco
settled the antidiscrimination suit for $176 million,
including a $115 million payment to about 1,400 salaried
Black employees. The oil giant also agreed to submit its
hiring and promotion practices to a court-monitored task
force empowered to set hiring quotas.
Texaco announced in mid-December it expects to increase
its total "minority" employment from 23 percent of its
19,554 employees to 29 percent by the year 2000. According
to company officials, employment of Blacks will rise from 9
to 13 percent and the number of women employees will grow
from 32 percent to 35 percent.
The suit by Black middle-managers at Texaco was one of a
number of such suits against oil companies in recent years.
Shell Oil Company, the U.S. division of Royal Dutch/Shell,
has been a particular target because of its poor record on
affirmative action.
According to a November 16 report in the Houston
Chronicle, only 18.2 percent of Shell's work force is
composed of "minorities," the second lowest percentage
among all major oil companies in the U.S. Even these
figures may be inflated, however. The same article quoted
the chief executive officer of Phillips Petroleum pointing
to a Norwegian heading one of the company's business units
as an example of diversity.
Three Black managers at Shell headquarters in Houston
filed a suit similar to that at Texaco early last year.
They charged that Black salaried employees were regularly
passed over for promotions and higher paying jobs. Only two
Blacks have ever been appointed to executive ranks in
Shell's retail marketing division, the suit alleges, and
all but two of Shell's top managers are white. No one from
an oppressed nationality, they state, has ever been offered
a stint at Royal Dutch/Shell international headquarters in
London, considered a requirement for top advancement in the
company. A similar suit was filed by African-American
managers in northern California last year.
An antidiscrimination suit brought by blue collar
employees who are Black at the Shell refinery and chemical
complex in Deer Park, Texas, just outside Houston, was
settled two years ago with a relatively meager cash award
for the workers. The settlement did not include any
meaningful agreement by Shell to upgrade its affirmative
action policies.
Blacks and Mexican-American workers were excluded for
many years from production jobs at Shell and other plants
in this huge petrochemical center. The company was forced
to end these "Jim Crow" practices only after Black workers
in the area, inspired by the gains being won during the
civil rights movement, organized and fought for affirmative
action on the job.
The lawsuit at Deer Park maintained that Shell
discriminated in hiring, firing, and promotional practices.
The charge of hiring discrimination was thrown out by the
courts because the plaintiffs were unable to afford the
costs involved in mounting a massive survey of all possible
Blacks who applied to Shell in the last few decades.
Evidence of Shell's discriminatory practices in hiring
is not hard to come by. On the walls of the training center
hang pictures of every training class hired in the last few
decades. Even a cursory look at these photographs confirms
that Shell has hired an ever decreasing number of Blacks in
the last 10 years.
Inside the Deer Park refinery a vigorous discussion has
taken place among members of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic
Workers Union (OCAW), which organizes production workers
there. The claim by some workers that discrimination no
longer exists has been dealt a blow by the Texaco
revelations. But there is still a wide range of opinions on
the value of discrimination lawsuits. Some workers point to
the Texaco events to bolster their support for affirmative
action, while others discount its impact.
Everyone, though, has enjoyed the current joke making
the rounds: "Why, Shell isn't at all like Texaco. They
wouldn't allow a tape recorder in the board room."

Jerry Freiwirth is an operator at the Shell Deer Park
refinery and is a member of OCAW Local 4-367.

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