Scana bans Confederate flag from company property

The State ^ | 8/15/02 | AP

[PJeffQ]

Posted on Thu, Aug. 15, 2002

Scana bans Confederate flag from company property

COLUMBIA, S.C. - Scana Corp. employees have been told to keep Confederate flag paraphernalia off company property.

South Carolina's largest utility also has ordered employees not to drive company vehicles to Maurice Bessinger's barbecue restaurants, The (Columbia) State reported Thursday.

Bessinger has been an outspoken Confederate flag supporter.

"Both the flag and Maurice Bessinger are divisive issues," said Scana spokeswoman Cathy Love. "For us to continue to be successful, we must have healthy, collaborative relationships with customers and co-workers. Divisive activities that disrupt harmony in the workplace are bad for business."

Bessinger said Scana's order was a "cowardly unconstitutional act."

"I have said before that one of our problems in trying to preserve our constitutional rights as a free people is simply a fact that the big corporations in this country have gotten in bed with the radical leftist NAACP and other pressure groups," Bessinger said Thursday in a statement.

Love didn't say whether Scana would fire workers for displaying the Confederate flag. She said any flag display "will be appropriately addressed by the company."

Scana, parent company of South Carolina Electric & Gas and other subsidiaries, has 5,480 employees, including 2,219 in the Columbia area, where Bessinger's restaurants are located.

Love said Scana employees can eat at Bessinger's during their lunch hour. But they'll be expected to park company vehicles off the restaurants' property. Vehicles can go on the property if Bessinger's restaurants have electrical service problems, she said.

It's not the first boycott of Bessinger and his distinctive yellow barbeque sauce. In 2000, major retailers, such as Wal-Mart and Kroger, stopped selling Bessinger's sauces because of literature offered at his Columbia-area restaurants, including one tract that suggests early Africans liked slavery.

In his new self-published book, Bessinger claims black Americans preferred segregation.

He has sued retailers who removed his sauce from their shelves, saying his products were dropped because of his political and religious views.

Bessinger also has drawn criticism for replacing the U.S. flag at his restaurants with the Confederate flag. That came after the state Legislature, under pressure from a boycott led by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, removed the Confederate flag from atop the Statehouse dome.

Although many state business leaders worked to remove the Confederate flag from the Statehouse dome, Scana's action moves the state's long-standing battle over the Confederate flag to the business arena in dramatic fashion.

Ike McLeese, president and chief executive of the Greater Columbia Chamber of Commerce, said the new flag ban might be an effort to head off further problems. McLeese said the company has had to deal with racial problems in its work force.

Earlier this year, a group of black SCE&G employees sued the company, saying it denied promotions to black workers and did little to counter racial insults and pranks by white co-workers. The company has denied the allegations.

Love said employee concerns triggered Scana's action, but she wouldn't discuss a specific complaint. She said the ban doesn't prevent workers from expressing views on their own time and away from company property.

"We are addressing issues related to Scana property, both at our physical work locations and regarding where our property goes."

The directives triggered outrage from a Confederate heritage group. Don Gordon, commander of the 250-plus-member Wade Hampton Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, said his group may sue Scana.

"This is a freedom of speech issue," he said. "It has fallen to the Sons of Confederate Veterans to defend our liberty."

Information from: The State

[CIBvet]

Wonder if they'll ban all the Mexican, Guatemalan, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Peruvian and Chilean Flags etc etc etc that are dangling from rear-view mirrors in the parking lot?

[southern rock]

big corporations in this country have gotten in bed with the radical leftist NAACP and other pressure groups," Bessinger said Thursday in a statement.

Say it again, Bessinger, and don't quit saying it. It's so damn true!

[Vladiator]

Why, did the "Mexican, Guatemalan, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Peruvian and Chilean Flags etc etc etc" governments commit treason?

[southern rock]

Why, did the "Mexican, Guatemalan, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Peruvian and Chilean Flags etc etc etc" governments commit treason?

Well, they are waging immigration warfare on the U.S. right now. I'd say that makes them enemy nations.

[RogueIsland]

Why, did the "Mexican, Guatemalan, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Peruvian and Chilean Flags etc etc etc" governments commit treason?

Nope, they didn't. Nor did they suspend the United States Constituiton to make warfighting more convenient.

[mlocher]

"Both the flag and Maurice Bessinger are divisive issues," said Scana spokeswoman Cathy Love. "For us to continue to be successful, we must have healthy, collaborative relationships with customers and co-workers. Divisive activities that disrupt harmony in the workplace are bad for business."

it's a free country and scana can do as it pleases. businesses that take political issues to heart usually have interesting tales to tell.

just ask k-mart.

[southern rock]

it's a free country and scana can do as it pleases.

Hmm... Are they a monopoly in SC? Receive any state funds? I'm all for private buisness doing as it pleases, but I wonder if they really are.

[PJeffQ]

Local utilities are monopolies... SCANA is a holding company that owns SCE&G which is a local utility in many places...

Private property rights are a concern here... but aren't personally owned vehicles private property?

[PJeffQ]

SCANA CORPORATION
Headquartered in Columbia, SC, SCANA Corporation is an $8 billion Fortune 500 energy-based holding company whose businesses include regulated electric and natural gas utility operations, telecommunications and other non-regulated energy-related businesses. SCANA’s subsidiaries serve nearly 547,000 electric customers in South Carolina and more than one million natural gas customers in South Carolina, North Carolina and Georgia.

SOUTH CAROLINA ELECTRIC & GAS COMPANY
SCANA’s principal subsidiary, SCE&G is a regulated public utility engaged in the generation, transmission, distribution and sale of electricity to nearly 547,000 retail and wholesale customers and in the purchase and sale of natural gas to approximately 267,000 retail customers in central and southern SC.

PSNC ENERGY
Headquartered in Gastonia, NC, PSNC Energy is a regulated public utility engaged primarily in transporting, distributing and selling natural gas to approximately 379,000 customers in the north central, Piedmont and western areas of North Carolina.

SOUTH CAROLINA PIPELINE CORPORATION
Engaged in the purchase, transmission and sale of natural gas to commercial, industrial and wholesale customers, including SCE&G. Also owns and operates LNG liquefaction, regasification and storage facilities.

SCANA ENERGY MARKETING, INC.
Markets electricity, natural gas, and other light hydrocarbons primarily in the Southeast. Also provides energy-related risk management services to producers and consumers.

SCANA ENERGY
A division of SCANA Energy Marketing that markets and distributes natural gas to approximately 385,000 retail customers in Georgia.

SERVICECARE, INC.
Provides energy-related products and services to retail customers through service contracts on home appliances.

SCANA COMMUNICATIONS, INC.
Provides fiber optic telecommunications in South Carolina and tower site construction, management and rental services in South Carolina and Georgia.

SCANA COMMUNICATIONS HOLDINGS, INC.
Based in Wilmington, Delaware, a wholly-owned subsidiary of SCANA Communications, Inc.

PRIMESOUTH, INC.
Provides power plant management and maintenance services.

[tet68]

"Both the flag and Maurice Bessinger are divisive issues," said Scana spokeswoman Cathy Love. "For
us to continue to be successful, we must have healthy, collaborative relationships with customers and
co-workers. Divisive activities that disrupt harmony in the workplace are bad for business."

A happy cog in a happy machine, working for a happy state.....or else.

[pittsburgh gop guy]

"Bessinger also has drawn criticism for replacing the U.S. flag at his restaurants with the Confederate flag."

Well screw him then. Must be friends with Osama. Why not put the flag of Iraq or the swastika up? They both fought against the United States and killed loyal citizens of it too.

BUT - this is America and he can fly whatever flag he wants. And companies can tell their employees not to go there too.

[TheSpottedOwl]

**Love said Scana employees can eat at Bessinger's during their lunch hour. But they'll be expected to park company vehicles off the restaurants' property. Vehicles can go on the property if Bessinger's restaurants have electrical service problems, she said.**

Well that's mighty white of them...

[PJeffQ]

They have people doing work for SCANA who drive vehicles that appear to be their own with contractor magnets on the door and rear... I wonder if it applies to them as terms of their contract?

[Diverdogz]

How come rebel flag waving rednecks don't fly the LAST flag to fly over the confederacy....you know, the solid white one?

[TheSpottedOwl]

I think SCANA is being ridiculous. The nerve of them saying that in case of a power outage they'll show up. Damn straight they'll show up, they're a monopoly and Berringer's BBQ restaurants, like the rest of the population, doesn't have a choice on who they get their utilities from.

Far as the independent contractors go, they can yank those magnets off their vehicles and go chow down :)

[TheSpottedOwl]

Oooops Berringers=Bessingers....

[pittsburgh gop guy]

Good one - I never thought of that. It must be where the Klan got the inspiration for their garb.

[southern rock]

Why not put the flag of Iraq or the swastika up?

Because those flags are not historical AMERICAN flags.

[southern rock]

And companies can tell their employees not to go there too.

Private companies can. Scana appears to be a regulated monopoly. Grey area there.