Oppression and disparity have been the primary reasons for protests and unrest. Coinbase seems to be overseeing the years of struggle women and people of color had to undergo in order to be treated fairly. Equal opportunities and equal pay mean nothing for some but for a few others both these factors have a huge impact on their lives. While people have believed that the 21st century has paved the way to an array of opportunities for all, cryptocurrency exchange, Coinbase seems to be fending off the fight that women and black people have had to put up for years.
Coinbase Underpays Black and Woman Workers
In an elaborate report, the New York Times revealed that prominent cryptocurrency exchange, Coinbase was treating its Black employees as well as women of the company differently. The article pointed out that women workers at the San Fransisco-based company were paid 8 percent lesser than the men with similar ranks in the platform. Black workers were paid about 7 percent which is about $11,500 less than the other workers in the company with comparable roles. While Coinbase has argued this discriminative pay scale in the past, suggesting that only some of them had an issue with it. However, over nine employees of the crypto platform affirmed the credibility of the data.
Despite the onset of COVID-19, the entire globe joined hands to battle discrimination against black people. However, in many sectors of various industries discrimination against black people and women continues to prevail. It was further revealed that disparity in pay at Coinbase between black and white employees had surged up to 11 percent after the stock options of the exchange’s workers were factored.
Sadly, Coinbase isn’t the only company that has been following inequality in pay. Google as well as Oracle have reportedly been slapped with lawsuits with regard to the same. However, it was noted that the pay disparity at the crypto platform was far worse than other tech companies. James Finberg, the advocate preceding the case against pay discrimination against Google and Oracle commented about Coinbase and said,
“This certainly looks like a company with a problem.”
In response to this New York Times article, the Chief People Officer, L.J. Brock, wrote a blog post clarifying that the crypto company has a transparent compensation framework. Brock wrote,
“Since Q1 2019, we’ve put in significant work to ensure our pay-for-performance philosophy is transparent and fair. I’m proud of everyone on the Employee Experience Team who has driven this work, and I’m committed to ensuring our comp structure remains fair and transparent as we continue to grow.”
Additionally, he pointed out that during the market review process, that the platform hadn’t increase pay targets. However, with regard to the shift in roles, the company intends to surge the pay targets. Furthermore, all the “impacted employees will be notified of any base salary increases in mid-January”, he wrote.