First time poster here, long time lurker. Let me clarify first that I don’t live in the US and this situation is not taking place in the US but somewhere in Latin America. I want to clarify this so that some things make more sense.
In April of last year I started a new job at a government place. An old boss of mine recommended me to his current boss and she hired me to be in charge of an entire area in this new place and to do work related to my degree (I want to be as vague as possible so I won’t be identified but ask me any questions you have, nevertheless). The pay was low but I had been struggling for 3 years to get a job, any job, that I accepted regardless. About 6 months go by and a bunch of new people started working at my job, in different areas, none in the same area as I was working (I was still “in charge” of my area). What pissed me off was the following: due to an error in HR an email was sent to all new people who have the same type of contract I have (everyone who was 6 months or newer) detailed everyone’s salaries, and that’s when I realised that mine was actually the second lowest of them all, only ahead of the only one who doesn’t have a degree in anything. That meant that all the people who started working AFTER me were getting paid around 40-60% more than I was, and all of them had the same level degree I have (as in, degrees in different areas but still we all have master’s degrees). I was pissed. But I made the mistake of keeping my mouth shut. I have to be honest and say that I thought that speaking up was going to be in vain so I kept my mouth shut.
Last October I had a raise of around 30% (inflation in my country ended up being over 50% last year so I’m still losing money) and so did all my coworkers so I was still around 40-60% behind their salaries. Fast Forward to this past week. We are, again, getting a raise of 25% (again, inflation is out of control) and I was talking to the new girl who started working 2 months ago. She has the same type of contract that I have, works fewer hours than I do, is in charge of her area, and yet, she gets paid more than I am. AGAIN. She actually makes around 30% more than I do, that is before the 25% raise that we are getting this month.
I’m so pissed. Just about everyone’s salaries are low to begin with but this is outrageous. I can’t make ends meet with my current salary, and I can’t quit because the economy’s in the shit and getting a new job is not guaranteed. I know that the root problem of all of this is my boss who doesn’t consider my job important/essential so she offered toast for the job and left it at that.
Here’s what I’m planning to do: since last December I've been unionised. Unions are HUGE and mostly powerful in this country, so I joined the only one I could so that I’d have some more “backup” in case something happened to my contract (my contract gets renovated every year, so technically there’s no guarantee that next January I’d still have my job) . On Monday I plan to contact my union representative and talk to him about this. I know I can’t talk to my boss about this because she doesn’t consider my job important therefore she doesn’t give two fucks as to how much (or how little) I get paid. I talked to another coworker and she encouraged me to talk to our union representative, and explain everything to him.
I feel like I’m trapped because on the one hand I can’t keep on having this shitty salary, but on the other hand I have to have some sort of income, and I’m not guaranteed to find a job that pays me as much as this one does (again, the economy’s atrocious and jobs are few and far in between).