Yes You Are Allowed to Discuss Your Pay with Co-Workers

I’m sorry to report that I continue to hear from my female clients that they are told not to discuss their pay with co-workers because it will “make everyone unhappy.” Recently, in the course of a compensation negotiation, one of my clients was told that her base salary couldn’t be increased because she was already being paid more than men who had the same title and position, as well as similar duties.

Then she learned she was being paid less than all the men who supposedly were being paid a smaller base than she was.

Yes. This made her very unhappy. But the people it should make the most unhappy are the members of the management team who lied to her for the purpose of low-balling her base compensation in a way that may well violate the Equal Pay Acts of the several states.

Equal pay requires transparency

And the law requires it

Here’s what the Atlantic has to say about the rules controlling pay transparency under the National Labor Relations Act:

Under the National Labor Relations Act . . . all workers have the right to engage “concerted activity for mutual aid or protection” and “organize a union to negotiate with [their] employer concerning [their] wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment.” In six states, including my home state of Illinois, the law even more explicitly protects the rights of workers to discuss their pay.

This is true whether the employers make their threats verbally or on paper and whether the consequences are firing or merely some sort of cold shoulder from management.

As NYU law professor Cynthia Estlund explained to NPR, the law "means that you and your co-workers get to talk together about things that matter to you at work." Even "a nudge from the boss saying 'we don't do that around here' ... is also unlawful under the National Labor Relations Act," Estlund added.

My client wasn’t told not to discuss her compensation with co-workers but she was afraid to address the issue with her superiors (who lied to her) because she was afraid she’d get someone fired. Maybe herself.

This is just one of the plethora of ways women get screwed in the workplace. They’re misinformed by management and uninformed about the law protecting them from discrimination.

But let me add a word of caution. Just because something is illegal, doesn’t mean that employers always follow the law. As the Atlantic reported, about half of American employees in all sectors are either explicitly prohibited or strongly discouraged from discussing pay with their coworkers. In the private sector, the number is higher, at 61 percent.

sharpen those pencils

Start Writing that Resume

So more than half of private employers are already violating the law and they could, if they chose, to violate it again by taking disciplinary action (up to and including termination) for violating the “gag order” imposed on their employees. After all, it’s expensive and difficult to engage in litigation with a corporate player and if you’re fired, demoted or dismissed, that necessary paycheck won’t come in the mail and it may take you a long time to find a new job.

My advice? If this happens to you, discuss it with someone you trust. If the signals indicate you’d be in peril if you raised the issue with higher ups, start looking for another job. How can you do your best work when the people you’re giving heart and soul to have lied to you?

And employers, heads up! People talk. And lying to your employees is no way to have an engaged workplace. Pay transparency is good for everyone. It’s also the only way employees can know that their employers have their backs.