I got hired thru an employment agency to work at a tech company a year and half ago. The contract I signed was for $20/hr for the third shift. When I got brought in, they told me, without notice, that I would actually be on second shift for the first two weeks because no one was available to train me during the graveyard shift. I agreed because they said the pay rate would stay the same during it. Once my training was complete they never changed my schedule to the one I signed up for, even after I asked. I ended up keeping it because bills.
Fast forward a year and a half later, I am still working the second shift at the original rate I signed up for. This Monday, I get a call from the agency saying that the company I physically work at had performed a pay audit and noticed I was making third shift rate. They told me I could either take a pay cut or move to third shift. I opted to move to third shift to keep my pay the same as I didn’t want a change to my income, obviously. I was told, alright, just come in for third shift, everything will stay the same.
Today, I get called again saying that my manager won’t approve the transfer and I have to take the pay cut anyway. When I asked why they said it was because I was under review for performance and attendance. This completely surprised me because I haven’t gotten a performance review in MONTHS and even so my last one was generally positive.
Now the extra confusing part is, as a agency employee, I am considered temporary. The company usually transfers you to full hire within a 3-6 month period. Full hiring comes with a pay bump and benefits. I have been kept for a year and a half. I’ve tried numerous times to do extra work and stay for overtime to get noticed and considered for full hiring, but in the entire time I’ve been here, it’s never been brought up. So now after all this time, I am making even less money because fuck me. If they wanted to, they could just hire me and keep the pay the same and it would equal the pay bump.
So what should I do now? I’m demotivated af to be here now even though my coworkers are awesome. The representative from the agency said they usually want someone to be at a position for 6 months before they move them on to something more advanced, so with how long I’ve been her I should “get something better easily”, but I don’t want to just rely on that. Is there any action I can take with HR or something? This is in NJ. Also I found out that the original contract is only for 3 months and after that it’s been renewed monthly. So for 15 months, 15 times they said they were still thinking about it.