Not a server but a hostess, just needed to vent about this and there’s no hosts subreddit lmao

I work as a hostess at a national restaurant chain here in the United States. I am the senior most host here having started in January of this year. I was hired at $14.65. I was having a conversation with two other hosts and one of them mentioned making $15 an hour, and so did another host. I was kind of like hold the phone because they were hired after me and this is all three of our first hosting position. I immediately wrote on a sticky note that I wanted to have a conversation with the GM when she was in next.

So a few days later on Wednesday we talk and she says “I’m going to raise your pay to make it fair but you really aren’t allowed to discuss pay at work, it even says so in the employee handbook, I’m not going to fire anyone or anything but just know talk about pay really has to stay between you and I”. So I texted my best friend to tell them about this and their husband texts me a few minutes later and he told me about the equal pay act and how if it’s in the employee handbook I have quite the lawsuit on my hands.

Unfortunately I couldn’t find anything in the employee handbook about it so I can’t sue the company but I did report the GM to HR for lying to me, and I haven’t heard anything yet but I’m reaching out to the district manager tomorrow!