In the past year and a half, Starbucks announced its renewed commitment to equity, inclusion, and diversity after a white Starbucks manager in Philadelphia called the cops on two Black men who were there for a meeting.
Starbucks received a great deal of backlash after video surfaced of them being arrested went viral. The company announced it would close all 8,000 stores in the U.S. on May 29, 2018, for a racial bias training.
But since its training, a new controversy brewing at the coffee-chain has surfaced.
A new report by Unite Here found Black employees at Starbucks airport locations are paid less than their white counterparts. According to the report, titled “One Job Should Be Enough: Inequality At Starbucks,” the report found that the median wage for Black baristas is $1.85 less than that of white baristas, according to the report.
From September 2019 through February 2020, UNITE HERE conducted a survey of 309 out of an estimated 2,512 Starbucks workers employed by HMSHost at 29 airports in the United States.
The median wage for white baristas was $13 an hour, while the median wage for Black baristas was $11.15 an hour. The median wage for Hispanic/Latino baristas was $12.67.
And the wage disparities are even worse at Houston’s numbers even worse where the median wage of Black baristas was $2.84 an hour less than the median wage paid to white baristas, according to the report. There were three Black baristas with more seniority than one of the white baristas who made $2.50 an hour less than that white barista. Another white barista who had only 4 months more seniority than one of the Black baristas made $3.17 an hour more.
HMSHost has dismissed the Unite Here’s racial pay disparities claims as “completely untrue.”
Read the full report by clicking here.