I used to work for the largest videogame retailer in the UK (I'm sure you can all guess who). In around 2008, give or take a year, everyone in our head office received an email stating everyone's annual pay.
This email was sent by the newish Commercial Director and it led to some excitable, angered and embarrassed conversations. People doing pretty much the same role having differences of 10k. Recent inexperienced hires either getting a sweet wage because of pre-employment friendships or getting below market rate as unknowns who need to prove they deserve the opportunity.
It was my first experience at truly seeing such wage equality. I mean, I used to think (incorrectly), “ok, those in shops are doing a less skilled job, of course Head Office deserve the big bucks” but on that day, I saw that if they can pay you fuck all, they will do.
In the end they “restructured” to change the odd job title to justify the bigger wages, those that knew their value got raises, a few left and more bottled it and just accepted it for what it was……grateful for the opportunity to work there.
Oh and the Commercial Director was gone a few months later.
What's this post all about? Like a lot of others on here…..share your wage. I've done it in every job I've been in since. When a new hire came on in my current role (I moved upwards), I told her exactly what I was on, expectations the lot.