I work in a lab and we're all pretty shamefully underpaid. Work just bumped the base rate of pay, which has been really nice, but it's still not near to average pay rate for some of these positions & we are shedding long-term employees (people who've been here for 20+ years) to retirement or to other companies because of it.
The underpaying is especially egregious for one of our lab leads. She does the work of about 3.5 people, including management stuff that is outside of her job description. When multiple long-term employees left she took on a lot of extra work duties, on top of already being overworked and at work early some days and at work late every night. Our manager has to work in the lab to cover a process only she (the manager) and someone who left knew how to do, so now my coworker is also covering some of that manager's duties. In addition to covering a lot of work our lab lead, who also quit recently, did. On top of being one of only 2 or so people who can do specific tasks or cover for certain people if they call out sick or also quit.
She told me she is going to go to HR to ask for a raise. Is there anything I can do to help with this process? I already told her that if she needs anyone to vouch for how much work she does in the lab that she is more than welcome to tag me in and I will sing her praises to HR. But honestly, she deserves to be paid at least double her current rate. I'm genuinely more pissed off at how underpaid she is than how underpaid I am.
And suggestions for things I can do that will help HR see her merit and beef up a potential raise for her? Or is it best if I don't stick my nose into it and just continue letting her know I'm available for her to vent at about this shitty situation?
Thanks!!
Edited to add some additional related info: We are both hourly, she's been here for 5 (or 6?) years, and she was recently passed over for a promotion to a salaried group lead position in favor of someone who has been here for less than a year and does substantially less work and puts in less effort than she does, which has been a massive bummer and something I'm incredibly perplexed about.