My employer is paying people doing the same job as me more money

Lily091213

Hi,
I work in a company that has multiple branches, and every branch has the same exact roles doing the same exact responsibilities.

In my city, there's 5 branches, so although they are in different parts of the city, there's no real difference in terms of overall location. 

One of the branches is struggling for recruitment. As an incentive, they have increased the salaries of everyone working there by 20% to try and keep them, and for any new starters, to try and attract them in. 

All other salaries for all other branches haven't changed, including mine.

Is that legal?  I was looking up equal pay, because those people who got increases are doing the exact same role as me,  but most of the Google searches seemed to suggest if its not a gender equal pay issue, then it's not a problem.

It doesn't feel right, but do I have any valid legal argument here? 

elsien

Yes, it is legal to pay people doing the same job different wages, unless it’s based on discrimination related to a protected characteristic.
if there’s not much to choose between the branches, could you not apply to move over there to get the pay increase?

comeandgo

No valid legal argument.   In my previous company there were 30 of us all doing the same job, I don’t think any of us were on the same pay.  Could you not give your notice and apply for a job at one of the higher paid branches?

Lily091213

comeandgo said:

No valid legal argument.   In my previous company there were 30 of us all doing the same job, I don’t think any of us were on the same pay.  Could you not give your notice and apply for a job at one of the higher paid branches?

In this example, I would guess that the differences in pay could be explained by seniority? Or perhaps different responsibilities, training, skills etc etc.

In my example, there's no difference in length of service, and the jobs are identical.

But I take your point about there being no legal avenue here. It just felt wrong, that was all. 

Khaderbhai

As others have posted, no legal argument. You could however use this as a chance to raise your pay and request a pay rise (if you are comfortable to do that and feel you are due it).

SiliconChip

Can you ask for a transfer to the higher-paying branch?

Marcon

Lily091213 said:

comeandgo said:

No valid legal argument.   In my previous company there were 30 of us all doing the same job, I don’t think any of us were on the same pay.  Could you not give your notice and apply for a job at one of the higher paid branches?

In this example, I would guess that the differences in pay could be explained by seniority? Or perhaps different responsibilities, training, skills etc etc.

In my example, there's no difference in length of service, and the jobs are identical.

But I take your point about there being no legal avenue here. It just felt wrong, that was all. 

It's certainly de-motivating but there's an objective business argument for what's happening: they are struggling to staff the branch. As others have said, could you apply for a transfer to that branch if the 20% increase in pay is worth any extra journey or other downside of making such a transfer?

Undervalued

Lily091213 said:

Hi,
I work in a company that has multiple branches, and every branch has the same exact roles doing the same exact responsibilities.

In my city, there's 5 branches, so although they are in different parts of the city, there's no real difference in terms of overall location. 

One of the branches is struggling for recruitment. As an incentive, they have increased the salaries of everyone working there by 20% to try and keep them, and for any new starters, to try and attract them in. 

All other salaries for all other branches haven't changed, including mine.

Is that legal?  I was looking up equal pay, because those people who got increases are doing the exact same role as me,  but most of the Google searches seemed to suggest if its not a gender equal pay issue, then it's not a problem.

It doesn't feel right, but do I have any valid legal argument here? 

No, almost certainly not.

In fact your post highlights a very valid reason for this happening. If, at a particular time or location it is difficult to recruit suitable staff the employer has to offer more money. At another time, perhaps if a competitor has closed down, there may be lots of suitable people looking for work and happy to accept a lower rate. All perfectly lawful.

DullGreyGuy

They dont need a valid reason... you cannot discriminate based on protected characteristics like religion, race, sexual orientation etc, and there can be arguments that something is indirectly related (eg 10% payrise for those wearing micro skirts could be argued as potential gender identity discrimination but the counter argument would be that dress code doesn't stop men wearing such garments)

Outside of that you are free to do what you want and its common for salaries to be individually negotiated... before a former employer introduced more nuanced grading system the pay range for our "seniors" was £40,000 to £120,000 with all in principle doing the same job (in reality higher ones got the more complex cases) and all having the same JD

Really the question is why haven't you bagged a pay rise and gone to the other branch?

MattMattMattUK

Lily091213 said:

comeandgo said:

No valid legal argument.   In my previous company there were 30 of us all doing the same job, I don’t think any of us were on the same pay.  Could you not give your notice and apply for a job at one of the higher paid branches?

In this example, I would guess that the differences in pay could be explained by seniority? Or perhaps different responsibilities, training, skills etc etc.

In my example, there's no difference in length of service, and the jobs are identical.

But I take your point about there being no legal avenue here. It just felt wrong, that was all. 

There does not need to be, sometimes just different people recruited at different points, different salary expectations in interviews, asking for different increases in performance reviews etc. it is quite normal for people doing the same job to have pay that has diverged over time. Other organisations have a structure and everyone is on it, pay grades/bands etc. Normally bigger companies where they have to worry about some kind of pay discrimination claim. 

General_Grant

I doubt the OP's employer would want to agree a transfer to the other location.  That may be seen as simply producing a staffing retention problem for their current location.  But, of course, it would depend on the real relative differences in location attractiveness.