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Long story short, I work in retail as a part-time employee. I have worked there over two years through college which limits my hours to weekends only during Spring/Fall semesters. I have never received a blemish on my employment record (no late/early punches, too many sick days, etc).

Recently, after my two year review, my manager stated that he'll get back to me about my raise. Some time later, I got the raise, however, as the title stated, my annual raise turned into the raise all of the other part-time employees are getting to keep up with the raising minimum wage. Therefore, after more than two years, I have the same pay as employees who have only worked there a month. Is this fair?

Thanks for any thoughts

Bender
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Bender
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4 Answers4

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Why do you think you are entitled to "fairness"? In this world you get what you get. I am pretty sure your employer is not paying you for how you "feel" either. And by-the-way turning up on time and not leaving early is not exceptional behaviour; it is expected behaviour.

Bottom line: do you add more value to your employer's business then the new hires? If so, ask for a raise, if not find a way to add more value and then ask for a raise or keep doing what you're doing and accept what you get.

Dale M
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This is one effect of rising minimum wages: compression of lower pay tiers. The new employees might have been offered a lower starting rate than the result of your raise, but your employer did not have that option as a matter of law.

Ghillie Dhu
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The same thing happened to me when I worked retail during my college years. I agree that it is unfair however, it is what it is. With that being said, there may be several factors that you should consider: the new employees might have more experience or qualifications then you, your work performance based on your manager's perspective, and like in my situation when I worked retail, I started out as a cashier which get paid less than sales associates but when I moved to a sales associate position I still got paid less and when I got my raise I got the same pay a new sales associate would get. I suggest you suck it up and ride it through until you get a real job because in retail, in my opinion, you are expendable, if you don't like their pay they will find someone else.

NuWin
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This question is largely opinion based but I wanted to balance out the people jumping on you.

There are lots of factors that go into salary/pay, such as what you contribute to the company and whather you go above or beyond whats expected of you. I would say seniority is one factor, or at least there is a case to be made that it is important. If someone has worked 5 years for me, that is five years that I have not had to search, interview, and train a replacement. I am not a business owner but I do employ people and when someone quits its an extremely stressful process. Not having to go through that, again in my opinion, is worth a small bump in pay.

I cant comment on if its fair or not. That is opinion. What is fact is that whenever a broad group of people are given a pay raise for arbitrary reasons and other employees arent, its creates discontent, it hurts morale, employees leave, and in severe cases the business becomes crippled. So Im not sure if its fair, but is it a bad idea? Generally.

See here and I highly recommend going here for anyone who thinks dramatically raising pay 'because its the right thing to do' is a good idea

von Mises
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