There’s a commonly-held belief that talking about your salary with your co-workers is a fireable offense. Not only is that an urban legend, firing you for it is illegal on a federal level!
Here’s Five Fast Facts Salary Discussions:
- 🖋️ Legal Eagle - The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) gives you the right to communicate with your co-workers about your wages. Why? The NLRA considers this discussion preliminary to unionizing or even for mutual aid and protection.
- 👷 Terms and Conditions - Not everyone is covered, but most workers are. The NLRA has very specific guidelines that must be applied.
- 🤝 Peer to Peer - There are limits, however. If you’re worried some other guy in the warehouse is getting paid more than you, then you can’t just go to HR and ask. Most bosses and HR folks are bound by confidentiality agreements. However, you do have the right to share your salary with your coworker but no one else can share his salary with you.
- 🤷 What, What? - If you didn’t know of any of this, then you’re not alone. But the reason you don’t know is probably intentional. In fact, one survey says that nearly half of all employers specifically DO NOT share salary information publicly because they are afraid it will make the workers upset. So, too much knowledge is a bad thing…or maybe they fear a jealous rampage?
- 🤫 Code of Silence - That misconception is working, too. Only about 20% of all companies practice open salary transparency. However, more and more states are requiring employers to post pay ranges for open positions (at the bare minimum) so things are slowly changing.
🔥Bottom line: It’s very telling that employees are kept in the dark about work policies in this country. The information is there and they’re required to post it. However, it’s a good bet that most Americans treat that information like the iTunes User Agreement: we just sign off on it without reading the fine print.
Do you know anyone who was fired for discussing their salary?
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