[jims69camaro]

so, basically what happened was that he started a year before you. their raise structure was different last year than this year. because he had the old raise, he is making more than you are. he was making more than you are now, given the respective time in on the job, which you think is unfair. but they will dictate what the raise structure is, and if you want to continue working, you will accept their raise.

the bit about getting a union together may or may not work out for you. they may decide to lock you out and hire a company to provide their employees for them. you never can tell how bringing a union into a smallish-type environment will work out. in any case, if you continue to work, you are implicitly accepting their raise.

since it's basically an at-will employment situation, they could fire you for any reason and you would have to prove in a court that they did wrong. be careful, whatever you do. if it's going to be a union, hold all meetings off-site and have everyone swear to keep it secret from management. any advance warning of what you are doing could tip the scale in their favor.

i worked for two large and one small corporations as a manager. basically we kept the unions out by treating our employees fairly and not giving them any reason to want a union. of course, you can't keep everyone happy all of the time, and some would complain no matter what you did for them, but in general the employees were happy with their compensation packages.