Recently, me and a number of my co-workers were offered a permanent position. Since everyone was initially hired on a 6-month contract, the offer to become permanent included a $1 an hour raise. However, after showing a lot of hesitancy, my manager increased it to a $2 an hour raise. After which I accepted it. I told a few of my co-workers that I took the offer and that they offered me a $2 raise. The next day my manager and HR came up to me and told me that my offer was confidential, and that I shouldn’t tell anyone else. They said that now they have people asking why they weren’t offered the same $2 raise, and that I was “creating chaos” in the workplace. However, we all do the same job and have the same amount of experience. This difference in pay is simply a tactic to take advantage of people in more vulnerable positions. Many of the people that I work with are immigrants on work visas who can’t risk refusing the offer, or those with families to support, who can’t afford a month or two of unemployment looking for another job. The only one who benefits from not discussing pay is the capitalists that exploit us and get rich off our labour.
– Joe M., Edmonton
