I'm new to the association world and have been working at C3/C4 advocacy organizations for the past 25 years. At most of the C3/C4s I have worked at, there have been big pushes for salary transparency (some even unionizing), something my current place seems clueless about. I downloaded our 990s and saw a huge discrepancy between mid-level and senior staff salaries.
There are a bunch of us here who have 25+ years of experience making half what our bosses do, and with no clear paths for promotion.
Is this typical in the C6 world? Have any of you tried unionizing, and if so, how did it go?
The job market is awful right now, and many of us are being forced into roles out of desperation b/c there are too many unemployed people and not enough jobs. HR pushed back big time when I tried negotiating my salary, so it is what it is for now (although I am working my butt off to try for a promotion).
Not looking for advice about how to negotiate better next time, just trying to get a read of how normal a lack of salary transparency is at these types of orgs.
Edited to add: Adjusted for inflation, I currently earn less than I did at a comparable role 15 years ago. When I was applying for jobs, this was the lowest-paying of all of them, and many of their competitors had much smaller operating budgets.