The company “disappointed” by the sentence
Starbucks was ordered by a New Jersey court to pay $25.6 million to one of your former regional directors, Shannon Phillips, who had sued the company for allegedly firing her unfairly. In particular, Phillips claimed to have been fired because she was white. The woman had worked for Starbucks for about 13 years and was fired following the arrest of two black men in a Philadelphia club in April of 2018.
The New Jersey jury ruled unanimously after a six-day trial, Phillips’ attorneys said. The spokesperson for Starbucks Jaci Anderson told CNN who the company is disappointed by the sentence and is evaluating the steps to take.
In 2018, the two men were asked to leave the bar after sitting down at a table without ordering anything. The men, who had refused to leave because they were waiting for a business partner, had been escorted out of the bar in handcuffs after the store manager called the police. The two later reached agreements with Starbucks and the city of Philadelphia.
In 2019 Phillips said that, following the arrest, Starbucks “took steps to punish white employees who were not involved in the arrests, but were working in and around the city of Philadelphia, in an effort to convince the community that he had responded adequately to the incident”. Phillips said Starbucks ordered her to place a white employee on administrative leave as part of these efforts, due to alleged discriminatory conduct that the former manager believed was inaccurate. After Phillips tried to defend the employee, the company fired her, he said.
Source-www.adnkronos.com