Report her to partner resources immediately. That's beyond illegal

It's super illegal for any employer to tell an employee they aren't allowed to discuss wages. $1

Make sure your coworker starts documenting EVERYTHING from this point onwards. All call logs, all conversations, full names and dates for everything. All 50 US States are at-will states, and I don't want to fearmonger but with an entry level job like this, there's always the fear that a vindictive manager will retaliate for something like this. I saw in another comment you stated that they already called Ethics, but they may want to prepare to speak with the NLRB too.

we..... get raises? What are the conditions and qualifications for pay bumps?

Have her start looking into resources in your area for legal representation if she needs it. It may not come to that but it never hurts to be prepared. They're hopefully would be a department of Labor for your state and they would hopefully be able to give you some more advice on how to deal with the situation. You might also advise her to begin looking into whether there is a independent body or nonprofit of some sort in your area that helps people when they have disputes with their employers like that. Some sort of Labor or employee advocate group. I also know that if you just want legal advice or the backing of an attorney if you say have to write a formal letter to the company that there are several services online that will set you up with a lawyer who will do that sort of thing for you and you can usually subscribe to the service for a month for about $25. They'll help you understand what your options in a situation are and they can file legal paperwork for you or write official letters that come with their letterhead, which a lot of the time can do a lot for you in terms of getting people to talk to you or negotiate with you or take you seriously. Sometimes they are going to be out of state lawyers so they won't be able to actually act on your behalf in a court case but anything short of that they'll be able to help you with. I know that I used one of these services when I had a dispute with my landlord and just being able to write my landlord a letter with an official lawyer's office letterhead at the top really made a big difference. I think the service I used was legal zoom but I can't be sure.

I definitely second documenting everything. She should definitely be keeping a journal with the date and time of every communication that she has with anyone concerning this issue even if it's just her fellow partners or her shift leader. She should write down the date the time and the topic of discussion. In addition to that you should definitely advise her to start keeping written records of all of the phone calls that she has with anyone concerning this issue. If it gets to that point it doesn't hurt for her to record phone call conversations although to do that she has to warn the person on the other end of the line that she will be recording the conversation for the purpose of keeping a record. This is why it's probably the best bet for her to attempt communication mostly via email if at all possible. Written communications are much better evidence than hearsay about what was said in a phone call. I hope it works out for her, this is one of my biggest pet peeves. It really gets me fired up to hear companies try and pull this shit. Wage transparency is one of the only ways that we as employees have of guaranteeing that there is no discrimination happening.

DMs like to use that line “it’s illegal to talk about pay” to hide behind not wanting to adjust pay. When a partner transfers from another area, the store manager should call partner resources & find out what their pay will be in the new area. For this partner it should be what they would be making for 5 years of service if they lived in CA the whole time.
I’ve seen people say on here that they got a pay increase if they worked a certain amount of time during COVID, I only got that increase pay for a couple of months, that was it.

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Yeah I'm my experience, it's a good idea not to bring up ethics or HR stuff to those branches in the company. They are there for the company's best interest, not yours. Always take it to your local representatives.

I stg DMs are only a level above SMS and yet they are bourgeois scum

When I worked at Starbucks, in Northern Virginia, starting pay for a partner was $10.00. Supervisors was $12.00…

Sue.

I would only note that you actually have several separate questions here.

1- is it legal to discuss pay? Yes, but many companies are quite pushy about people NOT discussing it, as you have now learned.

2- why did her pay change (notably to a point lower than many less senior baristas)? This is an internal policy question and likely one not easily resolved as legal standing (if any) is very sketchy, at best, and if there is no contract or written policy then the company will simply say they can organize pay as they see fit, end of story.

3- can this be fixed? Asking is the only way to try, but don't set your heart on policy changing even if specific instances do resolve.

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There are more, but this is a good start.