Starbucks closes stores, asks workers to talk about race
NEW YORK — Starbucks closed thousands of stores Tuesday and asked employees to talk about when they noticed their racial identity, discuss what unconscious bias is and watch videos in which people of color describe feeling unwelcome in stores.
It was all part of the coffee chain’s anti-bias training, created after the arrest of two black men in a Philadelphia Starbucks six weeks ago. But whether the training, developed with the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and other groups, will prevent another embarrassing incident remains to be seen.
“This this is not science, this is human behavior,” said Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz. “This is just the first step of many that we’re going to take.”
The training was personal, asking workers to break into groups of three to five people to talk about their experiences with race. According to training materials provided by the company, they were asked to pair up with a co-worker and list all the ways they “are different from each other.” A guidebook reminds people to “listen respectfully” and tells them to stop any conversations that get derailed.
“I found out things about people that I’ve worked with a lot that I didn’t know,” said Carla Ruffin, a New York regional director at Starbucks, who took the training earlier Tuesday and was made available by the company to comment on it.
Ruffin, who is black, said everyone in her group said they first experienced bias in middle school. “I just thought that was pretty impactful, that people from such diverse backgrounds, different ages, that it was all in middle school.”
She said the training and discussion is needed: “We’re never as human beings going to be perfect.”
Starbucks declined to specify how much the training is costing, but Schultz called it “quite expensive.”
“We’ve had certain shareholders call and say, ‘How much is this going to cost and how do you justify this?’ My answer to them was simply, we don’t view it as an expense. We view it as an investment in our people and the long-term cultural values of Starbucks.”
The company also lost sales from closing early, though the late-in-the-day training sessions meant no disruption to the busier morning hours.
At the company’s Pike Place Market location in Seattle, commonly referred to as the original Starbucks, the store stopped letting people in at 1 p.m.
Trina Mathis, who was visiting from Tampa, Florida, was frustrated that she couldn’t get in to take a photo but said the shutdown was necessary because what happened in Philadelphia was wrong.
“If they haven’t trained their employees to handle situations like that, they need to shut it down and try to do all they can to make sure their employees don’t make that same mistake again,” said Mathis, who is black.
Others visiting the store questioned whether the training would make a difference or suggested it was overkill.
Anna Teets, who lives in Washington state, said the problem has been fixed and the company has dealt with the situation. “It’s been addressed,” she said.