This is my first post here and I’ve got a lot going on right now but I needed to vent about what happened to me at work today. I’ll try my best to put it together in an orderly fashion.
I work for a large company that has 100’s of different departments and to protect myself that’s all I can share.
I’ve been feeling a bit bummed at work recently because I found out I won’t be eligible for a promotion that I’ve worked very hard towards. This promotion comes with a decent pay bump and a fair amount of responsibilities tied to it. Today while talking to a coworker who will most likely be one of the people to get the promotion, they informed me that the new hires (we’ve been understaffed for a bit but hiring has ramped up thankfully) are starting at $4.00 more per hour than my current hourly wage with less experience in our field. When I found this out, I went to a supervisor that I trust and asked if it was true and they stated that it was.
Now I have only worked at this company for approximately 9 months but came in with over a year of prior experience in this field. A few months after I was hired on I referred my buddy and they were hired. Today I asked them what their starting wage was and it was $3.50 higher than mine.
After learning this information then went to my other supervisor to discuss it and they were immediately upset with me and stated “you really shouldn’t talk about your wages, it’s against our policy and if the higher ups hear about that you will get into trouble.” . To which I responded with an interesting factoid about how talking about wages is federally protected.
As of right now I’m losing sleep on what to do next. I can’t keep going into work knowing that I’m being absolutely shafted by a company that values “integrity” but I am the only bread winner in my house and I need to support my family. I make decent money sure, but knowing that my family could be in a better position financially if I wasn’t being screwed over is absolutely killing me. I don’t know what to do so any advice would be greatly appreciated. Again, I am sorry if this is convoluted or confusing but my mind is pretty jumbled right now.
TL;DR: Company I work for is paying me $4.00 less an hour than brand new hires. Don’t know what to do.