You need to talk about your wages with your coworkers, it only helps your boss/company if you don’t.
This happened in my company a couple of weeks ago. We just had a new hire about 4 months ago and then another new hire about a month ago. I’ve never been ashamed to talk about what I make, usually I’m one of the lucky ones who is receiving a higher pay then most in the jobs I’ve had.
The first new hire was talking about how much better pay this job was with me then his last, something along the lines of a 6$ hr increase. I happened to be talking to my coworker about they new pay scale the new hires are getting and he was instantly shocked but chalked it up to the new hire having a college degree and him not having one. He assumed he would get paid more once he tested for his next level of license, you don’t need a degree to work here you just need to get certified and get your licenses but having a college degree relevant to the field gives you a pay bump equal to a low level license.
Cue the next new hire coming in and me finding out he has no licenses and only a college degree but is getting paid 1$ more per hour then the coworker who has been here almost three years and has two licenses (he got his second license right before the second new guy was hired). I was talking to the coworker and told him about this and the dude was rightfully pissed off. There is a lot that my coworker had done to help this company through some rough times and at this point felt like he was getting taken for a ride.
My coworker demanded to have a meeting with HR, his boss and the VP of the company and they agreed. He went into the meeting armed with the new pay scale and what he should be making compared to the new hires with his licenses, he was fully ready for a fight and wanted to have all his ducks in a row with what he should be compensated. Well the company fully agreed and he received a 4$ an hour raise.
Talk about your salary.