For the record, I have a fairly good job. I was able to get into a short-lived training program from a company that was trying to expand their stable of qualified technicians. It was a two year program (which I just finished) that saw us hired in as trainees at $20 an hour, and saw us promoted at the end to qualified technicians at $30 an hour.
I have no formal education apart from three associates degrees that never did anything for me, so this is more money than I've ever made. I came from a job doing independent contract work, so no benefits or time off. With this job I have full benefits and weekends off. And PTO! And Holidays!
It's like a dream, in some ways. Sure, my commute went from 10 minutes to 70 minutes, but it's good money and much better than what I had. So good that my wife and I agreed it was finally OK to add to our family.
We had our daughter in the spring of 2021, and I took my eight weeks of State Protected (and paid for) Paternity leave. This meant that the program was put on pause for me during those eight weeks until I returned to work. My other apprentice mates in the same generation as I finished the program around March, two years after we were hired. I finished eight weeks later, in May.
Right around the time I finished my program and they were filing paperwork for my promotion and wage increase, our site was visited by the company VP. He told us (among other prevaricated bullshit) that the company was addressing retention issues among the technicians of the company. According to their research, the company underpaid its techs compared to our competitors. To address this they intended to implement a company wide wage increase to bring us to a competitive rate. They called it “Equity,” whatever that means.
That happened last week. My supervisor called me in yesterday to tell me that I wasn't getting the increase. According to him, my promotion from the program was too recent, and they couldn't justify a second wage increase on top of that (Getting promoted from the final phase of being a Trainee to Technician carried a two dollar raise, after all).
I asked my coworker who was hired into the same training program if he had received an increase, despite getting promoted a mere two months before I did. He had. So did other trainees.
So, the only difference between my coworkers who got the raise and were in the same program as me and I is that I had a baby and took leave.
And HR has told me flatly that they're not revisiting this competitive wage increase after this round. So I missed it because I had a baby?
Really?
I'm not trying to be greedy, but my wife doesn't work much, and every little bit helps so she can stay home with our daughter. So begin told that my coworkers who didn't have a baby were getting the increase is really chafing me.
end rant