Using a throwaway because my coworker is on here.
Coworker and I started having concerns about the Equal Pay Act. There’s a history of former male employees getting paid more than women for the same exact job. I have a pay gap of $10,000 and hers is about $5,000. We both outperform the men in relation to this which has been confirmed by higher ups. We don’t have HR and I’m not interested in bringing the org down with a lawsuit. Our work is important and it would only hurt the community to have the org go under. Long story short, we brought this up and requested raises.
I spoke with our ED for literal hours about this and he denies unequal pay is occurring. He compared our letters to a child writing a letter to their parents for a Christmas present. I had to straight face this but ended up bursting into tears some months later after ongoing condescending and belittling language. He had the audacity to act like he was my friend and was there for me.
As a new manager, I feel the need to stand up for my employee and take care of her as my former manager took care of me. This feels wrong and abusive but I don’t know if this is fixable? The morale is so low and we feel like we have to pretend it isn’t to make the atmosphere less harmful to our mental health and job security. Overall, if we leave, the community won’t have experienced enforcement available to them or anyone to train the new enforcer. Also the new enforcer will likely endure the same problems if I can’t somehow resolve this.
I asked my ED to put his reasoning about unequal pay into writing and he avoids the request. He denies it’s a problem.
Is this fixable? How do I manage this situation while retaining our dignity and self respect? Do we just give up and leave anyway?