It was a few weeks ago that accusations of racist and homophobic behavior came against Zara’s founder Amancio Ortega, but a new report reveals that the discriminatory behavior doesn't stop with upper management.
A survey of the retailer's New York employees done by the Center for Popular Democracy, found that loss prevention measures often targeted black customers. The term used to describe a suspicious shopper was "special order," which meant that once shared over the headset, an employee or manager would follow that customer. When the 251 respondents were asked about the language, 57 percent were familiar with the term and 46 percent responded that it was "always" or "often" used for black shoppers.
One employee shared in the report that the "special orders," a term that was later changed to "customer service," were often classified by their clothing and were "mostly African American." The report also found that black employees were more than twice as dissatisfied with their hours and that darker-skinned employees were the least likely to receive a promotion.
In a statement made to Fashionista, a spokesperson for the retailer denies the accusations. "Zara USA vehemently refutes the claims contained in the Center for Popular Democracy report, which was prepared with ulterior motives and not because of any actual discrimination or mistreatment. It fails to follow an acceptable methodology for the conduct of a credible objective survey on workplace practices, and instead appears to have taken an approach to achieve a pre-determined result, which was to discredit Zara. Zara USA believes that the claims made in the report are completely inconsistent with the company’s true culture and the experiences of the over 1,100 Zara employees in New York City and over 3,500 in all the US."
