50¿ 36 years M t. Hood Jazz Weekend festival celebrates 25 years of top talent <<& of •'rnntm unity service _ Metro section, inside See See Metro i >E ÍBurt latrò © bsertœr ‘City of Roses 11 V í\ i R a CPC r " _ * ._ l_ lí_ l Volume XXXVI, Number 31 TIWeek ¡n The Review Castro Turns Over Power Fidel Castro, who has wielded absolute power in Cuba for nearly half a century, turned overpow er to his brother Raul on Monday after undergoing intestinal sur­ gery. The surprise announcement stunned Cubans on the island and in exile, and marked the first time that Castro had relinquished power in 47 years of rule. Fighting Deep into Lebanon Israel launched a major attack deep into L ebanon T u esd ay , and Hezbollah said its guerrillas were fighting Israeli commandos on the ground nearSyria. Hezbollah fired just 10 rockets across the border Tuesday, well below an average of about lOOaday since the fight­ ing began 21 days ago. Voting Rights Extended Civil rights leaders said President Bush’s signature to extend the 1960s civil rights law against rac­ ist voting practices will be just a footnote in history if the govern­ ment fails toenforce it. See story, page B2. Gibson Sorry for Words A cto r and conservative activist Mel Gibson said Tuesday that he is not a b ig o t and that heapolo gizes to “ev­ eryone in the Jewish community for the vitriolic and harmful words” he used when he was ar­ rested for drunken driving. “Ha­ tred of any kind goes against my faith,” he said in a statement is­ sued through his publicist. ‘Tar Baby’ Remark Stings Gov. Mitt Romney, a potential candidate for President, referred to the troubled Big Dig construc­ tion project in his home state of Massachusetts as a ‘tar baby’ Saturday and then apologized, saying he didn’t know anyone would be offended by the term some consider a racial epithet. White House spokesman Tony Snow sparked similar criticism in May when he used the term. Heat Wave Moves East The same heat wave that was blamed for as many as 164 deaths in C alifornia brought a fifth stra ig h t day o f o p p re ssiv e weather to Chicago Tuesday and promised at least three days of brow-mopping temperatures in the New York metropolitan area. u v ¿X k* G CX 2. fr g S JD O •- Z t/> g JD U* o an « = g? S • S í — ■ ia t a c SJ c 5 ao ■ www.portlandobserver.com Committed to Cultural Diversity Wednesday • August 2. 2006 TV Hiring Falls Short Diversity lags on local airwaves by S arah B lount T he P ortland O bserver When it comes to diversity in the Portland media, television stations have a long way to go with their minority representa­ tion. KGW, KOIN, KATU and Fox - for example, with respective teams of anchors and general reporters, feature only two or three minorities. Only eight out of a total of 101 faces or names found on TV promotions and websites are non-white. This doesn’t mirror Portland's population, which is just shy of 20 percent minority. According to the U.S. 2000 census, whites make up 77.9 percent of the population, blacks account for 6.6 percent, Hispanic and Latinos 6.8 percent, Asians 6.3 percent, Native Americans 1.1 percent. Pacific Islanders 0.4 percent and other races account 3.5 percent. Management at KATU, Fox and KGW could not be reached for comment, but Jeff Allen, general manager at KOIN Channel 6, said the station is going through a set of personnel changes, since new management took over in January. Allen declined to comment on the nature of the changes. With such a small minority representation, who’s to say Portland is doing enough to broadly recruit African American, Asian, Latino and Hispanic talent? Lewis Pulley of the Equal Employment Opportunity division of the Federal Communications Commission said the agency can’t question who each station recruits, but can only ensure they’ve recruited adequately. To ensure the measures, each year the FCC audits just five photo by M ark W ashington /T he P ortland O bserver Ken Boddie has 20 years of experience as a TV anchor and reporter at KOIN-TV Channel 6. He is one of the few persons of color on Portland's airwaves. percent o f stations nationwide, requiring them to account for positions filled, job announcements, recruitment initia­ tives and any pending or resolved complaints alleging discri mi ■ration. “ In oür recruitm ent rule we require that they recruit within a broad cross-section o f the com m unity, but we can’t require quotas or anything along those lines,” Pulley said. He said actual evidence of discrimination would be another issue. continued on page A9 ‘Zero Tolerance’ Harassment Policy Adopted at Franz Bakery Rights Group Faults Katrina Response Court sanctions terms after a decade of failure Says poor, blacks in disaster neglected The U.S. Equal EmploymentOpportunity Commission has settled a sexual and racial harassment lawsuit against U.S. Bakery, Inc, the parent of Franz Bakery, after a fed­ eral judge ruied that the company was re­ sponsible for sexual and racial harassment. The case involved four women - three white and one African American - who worked at the Portland bakery located at Northeast 12th and Flanders Street. The women resolved their individual claims through separate, confidential agreements. As terms of the settlement, Franz has agreed to make sweeping changes in man­ agement practices and adopt a “zero toler­ ance” policy against harassment and dis­ crimination. A consent decree also gives the EEOC monitoring power over the employer for three years and court enforcement if necessary. Franz Bakery is the largest family-owned bakery west of the Mississippi River and serves grocery, restaurant, food service and institutional customers in O reg o n , W ash in g to n , V N orthern C alifornia and parts o f Idaho, Montana and Alaska. Three of the women who were sexually harrassed worked on the production floor of the bak­ ery while the fourth worked in the office. “This was an egregious case o f a foreman sexually and racially harassing em­ ployees for many years with impunity and represents an employer's ab­ ject failure to take its responsibilities seri­ ously under the law," said EEOC San Fran­ cisco Regional Attorney Bill Tamayo, de­ scribing how a former foreman at the bakery photo by M ark W ashington /T he P ortland O bserver Franz Bakery has settled a sexual and racial harassment lawsuit, stemming from complaints at its Northeast 12th and Flanders Street plant, agreeing to make sweeping changes in management practices. engaged in extremely offensive harassment that was open and notorious for many years and was known to managers and supervi­ sors. The foreman admitted to making hun­ dreds, if not thousands, of sexual and racial plained to another supervisor or foreman about the conduct, he never reported it to his superiors or to the company human re­ sources manager. In addition, for most o f the harasser’s eight year employment at the bakery, the company had an inadequate sexual harassment policy that failed to provide a complaint p ro c e d u re o r assu ra n c e s against retaliation for report­ ing harassment or discrimina­ tion. the EEOC said. The company also never provided non-supervisory employees with employment discrimination or harassment training until after the harasser This was an egregious case o f a foreman sexually and racially harassing employees fo r many years with impunity and represents an employer's abject failure to take its responsibilities seriously under the law. c o' «3 I Established in 1970 - EEOC San Francisco Regional Attorney Bill Tamayo comments, including in the presence of su­ pervisors and managers. He also admitted to bringing in pornography and showing it to employees and supervisors. Although each o f the four women com­ X was finally fired. Tam ayo noted that in Au­ gust 2004, the EEOC won a summary judg­ ment from U.S. D istrict C ourt for the D is­ trict o f Oregon, finding U.S. Bakery liable continued Z3 ■ on page A 9 (AP) - The United States must better protect poor people and African-Ameri­ cans in natural disasters to avoid prob­ lems like those after Hurricane Katrina, according to a new report by a U.N. human rights panel. The U.N. Human Rights Committee said poor and black Americans were "disadvantaged" after Katrina, and the U.S. should work harder to ensure that their rights "are fully taken into consid­ eration in the reconstruction plans with regard to access to housing, education an