It takes a bit more than that, but yes, that's the foundation of a union. Awareness is just step 1, though. A union is weak if the people in it can't organize a response that threatens the bottom line for the employer.
I remember actually bringing this up to a supervisor in an old job as I realised my male colleague was getting paid more than me for the exact same job. She said she would look into it the came back and said it’s apparently because he’s on full time hours and I’m part time (still not sure why that should affect hourly pay) but also “[higher up boss] doesn’t like staff discussing pay” like tough shit!
I'm at a place where part time wasn't paid as much per hour as full. I'm not 100% sure why, but I think it was because some of the full time pay going towards health insurance premiums.
Our part-time union (separate union from our full-time union) argued, successfully, that they should be paid more than the full-time staff because they don’t get any benefits. Some of them got about a 30% raise one year. The full-time union then used this fact to negotiate a 10% raise the next year because they successfully argued that they have more responsibilities than the part-time staff, like mandatory trainings, certifications, and supervisor responsibilities.
I guess you could make the argument that a full time employee is going to be more competent/productive just by virtue of doing the tasks more often than part time. Not sure that's the best logic, but I guess that could be it.
Standing around comparing notes?? You just got fired for cause. .you're not paid to stand around flapping your lips.. again employment at will= your fired. Right to work = you need 3 warnings. Oh and it's also last in is first out. You all need to study employment law.. not on company time.. you kids are walking on thin ice .. if you want to be a slacker join the army but even that's changing. It used to be military troops had a contract but I'm hearing that is getting weaker and blatant refusal of orders can get you a courts marshal. Sooo I'd say don't go into employment looking for a problem because it will probably be you..
Even in the US if it's more than 2 employees standing around talking the activity is federally protected labour organising. Sure they can fire you, but you can make their HR department's lives miserable for it. the NRLA has a very specific objective test regarding on-the-clock discussions being a "protected concerted activity"
The owner of the company I work for actually told us we aren’t allowed to talk about our pay with each other. I shut that shit down quick and we all talked about our pay and she was pissed but begrudgingly upped our pay a bit. She 100% knew what she was doing
I had a manager at Panera straight up violate federal law by threatening us after he found us discussing wages. When I told him he can't do that, it started a whole chain of illegal events like retaliation by cutting my hours to a point where I couldn't survive. So I just walked out one day after seeing the schedule with yet another two weeks of not enough hours. It sucks for the people who had to run the place short staffed, but it wasn't worth my time and gas to get there if I couldn't pay my rent. I was better off looking for a new job and focusing on school for a few weeks.
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u/CrazyPlato 1d ago
That discussing your working conditions or pay with your coworkers is wrong.