I work at a fast food restaurant in south eastern US region roughly. I've worked there over a year now. Im 28yrs old with about a decade of food work experience behind me. I am very very poor and desperate in my life, my family is generationally poor for a long time now, im also back moved into my mothers house bcus my roomates at my last place turned out to be using hard drugs.. this is why I'm at fastfood. Had to switch work wjth the move too. This means I'm hungry and desperate for things to work out and get better. And Like any abusive relationship that's a corporate job, they preyed on this. But i also made a great name for myself quick. I'm very fast, thorough and accurate on my shifts. Everything gets done correctly, quickly, and by myself on the weekend dinner rushes, id even keep it clean for the whole rush while making great time, i get alot of compliments often about my work ethic. I got a small raise with time, I got promoted to crew trainer for another small raise and started training for manager but I hate Frontline and customers so I declined Partially through training..
Now things get messy… soon I get a 2nd job bcuz the pay isn't enough, and tbh these weekends alone are getting to be wayyy too much to always do solo, machines are breaking all the time making things harder, prep ppl that been there 10yrs are quitting, managment changing, its a mess even more so now. . So about two months ago i am training a new employee, im about 10 months into being here, it's his 1st day. He asks about my pay and the manager snaps DONT DISCUSS PAY! With not just anger, but panic. I instantly think Mr 17yr old would be hurt to hear how much there star evening shift cook was making day one and he would leave. This makes me feel bad about my responsibilities as a trainer and i work extra hard to train him even while its busy. Man oh man I'm naive.
So he sneak asks later what I make. I don't believe in hiding these things so I tell him. 12.45. He goes “weird im making 13″….
So this is the beginning of a long chain of events, i won't type every detail bcuz i think we all get the picture and this is already a book so, I figure out multiple of my new hires around me are all making more than me, and it's bcuz a new raise kicked in recently for just about everyone I think, almost. But not me, it's almost a year now that I been here, and now I'm told I do have a raise coming but it won't b much more than the new hires at all. The reason for this im given is bcuz I stopped taking Weekends for my second jobs availability. I'm told I will get a better raise if I work weekends but it's not worth it. Is this legal? What I can do here??? There's alot more messed up context here but it was so so much to type and read so I will stop my “exposé” here lol