I work for a large theater chain, and there are several theaters in my area for the same company. The closest is 5 mins away from me, but there are about 6 within a thirty minute drive. Our starting wage is the lowest of each of these theaters. The highest is two dollars more than our starting wage and is at a theater less than 20 minutes away from us. We even do more business than some of the theaters getting paid more than us. When I brought this to my general manager's attention, he told me not to get my hopes up but that he would talk to his boss about it. When we heard back, we were told the above, which is that because we aren't having issues with hiring new staff, we won't be increasing the starting wage. Which, to me, sounds like corporate talk for “we're able to trick people to work at your store instead of the ones where they'd get paid more, so we will continue to keep tricking them until we can't any longer”
Any suggestions on how I can stick it to the company? Any advice on how to better advocate for higher wages?
Edit: Included information about our performance vs. the other theaters that are getting paid more