Hey y’all, I’m a warehouse worker in Illinois, when I was hired on I was promised $17.50 an hour. I got access to the employee self service recently to find out these past 4 months I’ve been getting paid $17. Now I don’t have any actual on paper proof of this but I remember very clearly thinking , “$17.50, hey that’s just a dollar less than my girlfriend who’s already in the field, neat!” And I’m a little miffed about this discrepancy, because I know it probably happened because my department manager is scatter brained.
I don’t need any legal advice or rallying cries here. I just wanna know cause I already sent him an email saying I found this, this isn’t what I was told, can I come over to your building later and talk about this? How should I broach this? Obviously I want to start with friendly energy but stay stern that this is not the rate I was told I would be getting. Thoughts?
Definitely do it in person and take the approach of “I was offered $17.50 initially and I have show I am reliable/hardworking over the last 4 months, and I would like to earn $X now” rather than “it’s not fair I was told this rate but got paid less”. Specific examples to show your value are helpful, use a friendly but firm approach, but recognize usually employers have complete discretion in wages unless you are part of union or have a contract so there’s a chance they will say no.
Another option is to use those 4 months of experience to get a new warehouse job with better pay. People tend to earn more job hopping than waiting for raises.