At a press conference Tuesday, Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC), an advocacy group for restaurant workers, released the findings of a three-year study conducted with Race Forward, an organization focused on racial equity.

The study, which surveyed restaurant employers, workers and consumers throughout California, documented systemic race-based occupational segregation and implicit biases in the restaurant industry that results in lower wages, benefits and working conditions for people of color.

The new report expands on a 2017 ROC study that found the Bay Area's race-wage gap — the difference in pay between white people and minorities working in the restaurant industry — was the highest in the country.

The report attributes the high race-wage gap to the racial segregation of "front of the house jobs" (servers, bartenders and hosts, who directly interact with patrons) and "back of the house jobs" (cooks and kitchen staff who typically remain unseen by diners).

Workers of color represent over 70% of the restaurant workforce in California and those jobs are predominantly concentrated at the back of the house, in lower-wage jobs, according to the study.

Joel Leon is a Mexican American restaurant worker living in Oakland. He says he’s applied to over 20 server positions and interviewed for around half. Despite having previous front of the house experience as an assistant manager at his previous job, Leon has not been able to land a server position.

“I have been denied a lot of times by restaurants for server positions, and they've always offered me back of house positions, such as dishwasher or busser,” Leon said.

Even when people of color are able to find front of the house work, their wages, on average, are lower than white workers in the same position. The study found, for instance, that 51% of white bartenders and 45% of white servers earn livable wages, compared to 28% of bartenders and servers of color in the Bay Area.

Mayor Schaaf and Councilmember Bas were on hand Tuesday to voice their desire to promote equity in the restaurant industry.

"With the restaurant industry being a core part of our economy, with Oakland being a food destination, I think it's really important to make sure that we're making this industry as equitable as possible," Bas said.

"Now that we have data around this, as well as a toolkit, I think it's more possible to change the industry and to make it more accessible to everybody," Bas added.