My friend works for a publicly traded company in the US, and she told me about all sorts of misgivings by the company that range from huge red flag to illegal. Directly affecting her:
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She has captured a company-wide email from the holidays telling all employees “not to discuss your bonus amount, just like your salaries”. This has been verbally reinforced many times.
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In recent performance reviews, she found out she is making the least on the team, including two less experienced people hired after her that she trained. (I know one of the others and can confirm, less experienced, and saw his pay sheet). My friend has the highest activity and output of the entire team and is being paid the least, and her performance review did not adjust accordingly.
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Her manager just told her that one less experienced employee “probably makes more because they assumed he was bilingual”. This person is of Latino descent but doesn’t speak a word of Spanish.
There is definitely racism, discrimination, and labor violations here, but is any of it legally actionable? Does she have to be retaliated against?