Numerous Black employees have accused Peloton of pay disparities, Insider reports.
According to an investigative report published on Nov. 3, four Black Peloton employees—current and former—provided access to screenshots of Slack conversations, as a review of internal documents as evidence of their claims of being underpaid.
Approximately 200 full-time employees created the "Black@Peloton" employee group, and they first began discussing issues over salary on Slack back in September. Some said that they felt they were compensated less than the industry standard and one employee with 11 years of IT experience said that she made a salary of $57,000 as a "Level 4" professional in Peloton's IT department. Another employee, with eight years of IT experience, said her salary was bumped up to $51,000 only after negotiations, Initially, she was offered $50,000.
"I think Peloton is just extremely cheap when it comes to their internal employees regardless of race,” one employee said. "But when it comes to your front-line workers, people who are in your warehouses, people who are your member-support agents who are taking these calls from actual Peloton bike riders—a majority of those teams are African American."
(Note: Peloton raised the starting wage of its hourly workers by $19 beginning in July of 2020 as part of its four-year $100-million pledge to "fight racial injustice and inequity in our world and to promote health and wellbeing for all.")
In a meeting in October, Michael Gettlin, vice president of global total rewards, told members of the Black@Peloton employee group that Peloton "does not pay below the competitive market rate" and the company considers “geography and experience when determining how much an individual within each level of the company makes. "
“So it is entirely possible that two team members could be on the same level but paid significantly differently," Gettlin said. He also said that two employees who do the same work on the same level of the company but are in the same city should not be paid very differently.
John Foley, the founder of Peloton, noted that the company pays its employees in the "top 10% of all companies for similar roles" and that Peloton offers its full-time employees stock options.
Gettlin also stated that Peloton hired an external consultant to conduct a "pay-equity study" to address the employee concerns which will take place between January and March of 2022.
"We've met with every team member who has actively come forward to express concerns about pay equity because we take this so seriously,” he said. “We've addressed individual concerns as we do with any other workplace concern."
Some of the Black employees said that they grew tired over additional internal factors, such as a workforce-diversity report Peloton promised employees which they have yet to see.
"None of it is genuine," one employee argued. "The Black dollar is powerful, and Peloton sees the benefit with aligning themselves with the BLM/Anti Asian Hate stance, but does little to address inequity and diversity concerns internally."
A Peloton spokesperson sent a statement addressing the concerns of the Black employees.
"At Peloton, we are committed to pay equity and take it very seriously,” the statement read. "We're proud we have team members who openly share their feedback when they have questions or concerns, especially when conversations are hard. We have a number of initiatives and processes in place today to ensure equitable compensation, and we are committed to continuous improvement, as part of our journey to becoming an antiracist organization."
