Stay with me, it gets messed up.
I work in IT, and management claims that pay is determined by education, certifications, experience, time with the company etc. Which are all things that my coworkers and I discussed with each other prior to me approaching management.
I started before the contract began at $16 and change. Expectations were high and everyone was excited to get started…. We got REKD. No one was prepared for the workload that got dropped on us. Management scrambled trying to bring in as many people as they could as quickly as possible. People from the company who previously held the contract (who were snubbed after being promised positions) were offered positions, keeping their pay (between $23 and $26).
They brought in others who were completely new, with similar experience to me (no certs, no degree, a couple of years of experience) at $19 and change.
Anyway, last summer after we finally got our workload under control, pay cuts were announced for the people who were brought over from the previous contract, bringing their pay to under $21. This is when people started leaving and began the trend of disclosing pay.
This last week we lost two people. One of them started when I did and we found out he was making $14. The second person (who had almost the same qualifications) was brought in two months after we were at over $19.
The worst part about all of this? While we were all sharing our qualifications and pay, the hardest working person on our shift (like literally the only person who is happy to do anything) starts rattling off his qualifications and certs (with veteran status) and two full decades of experience, 7 years with the company and honestly just a laundry list of why he's overqualified…. he's making less than $16. It was like a career obituary.
The saddest thing is that, even though he was upset, he is so damn loyal to the company that he will never say anything about it to management.
I've been looking for a new job for a while and I'm ready to go. But I have opened up dialogue with one of our “better” managers about why people are leaving. I don't know if I'll be able to accomplish any kind of change, but I feel like I should AT LEAST be able to shame them enough to get that guy a decent raise. I'm not the only one fired up over it. The person who had just started their two week notice, left in the middle of that shift and never came back.
The others and I have shared this with our coworkers on other shifts (keeping things anonymous) and nobody is happy. Some of them hang out on this sub (what's up guys, power to the people! DM me if you're the one who left, the rest of us have questions)
Anyway, just wanted to share and see if anyone has any advice on how to approach situations like this.