I work at a pretty large tech company and recently found out where are grossly underpaying our front end workers (basically they are “secretaries” but they do WAY WAY WAY more than that and that’s an oversimplification of the amazing work they do) to the point that one shared with me in private he was skipping meals because he couldn’t afford to eat and also put gas in his tank. I’ve never worked at a company with a union. I’m a younger millennial and have only ever worked in tech.
I’m in a little bit of a better position in terms of job security than this person. My first suggestion was to spam our global Q&A asking the CEO to answer our concerns (we’ve asked questions in the past about upping pay but they always give us a noncommittal answer about “market rate” and other stupid stuff). But this is the channel they ask us to use so I want to make sure I’ve documented I did this step.
After that, what else can I do to document my concern? An open letter to the company on LinkedIn? Help organize a strike with those front end folks? I want to protect myself and my rights but also it makes me freakin sick to my stomach that we have people at my company struggling to eat and make rent when at the same time my department just spent $25k on fucking shirts for our org.
It’s not that we don’t have the money. What are my options to both protect myself and also push the company to do something?