Can Your Boss Prohibit You From Discussing Wages or Salary?

It is certainly natural and anticipated that workers will discuss amongst themselves, what they are being paid by their employer. But employers may not want this to go on. They may not want employees to know what each of them are being paid, for fear that pay discrepancies will lead to workers getting upset, asking for raises, or worse, suing.

To stop this, many employers have passed policies or the culture discourages employees from discussing salary, or disclosing their salaries or payments to their coworkers.

The CA Equal Pay Act

Employers cannot prohibit employees from discussing wages or compensation, under the Equal Pay Act (EPA). The EPA requires that workers who are in the same job, who do the same thing for the same employer, cannot be paid differently based on gender, race, or any other protected class, such as religion or age or nationality.

Employers can pay employees differently. But only based on objective merit systems, or on seniority, or some non-race or non-gender factor such as education or specialized experience.

Why Prohibit Salary Discussions?

Often, employees only realize that another employee is being paid more for doing the same job, after they speak to each other To allow these kinds of illegal pay discrepancies to be discovered, and to deter employers from salary discrimination against employees of minority groups, the EPA does not allow an employer to punish an employee, for discussing either current pay, or prior pay.

In fact, the EPA goes even farther, prohibiting your employer from asking about what you were paid in prior jobs. Many employers don’t know this and will ask anyway; if they do, it is always best just to respond by discussing what you would like to earn at the job you’re interviewing for.

In fact there is no real reason for an employer to need this information anyway, because an employer cannot base your salary at a prospective job on what you earned at a prior job. Doing that only allows employers to rely on historically discriminatory pay practices.

It’s not just California law that makes it illegal to prohibit employees from discussing wages. Federal law does as well; the EPA is a federal law, and the National Labor Relations Board has also noted that such policies may also violate workers’ free speech rights and the right to organize and make efforts to improve the work environment.

Retaliation Issues

Any attempt to punish you for complaining about unequal pay, can be seen as illegal retaliation. Employers cannot punish you for engaging in a legally protected activity, and discussing wages is legally protected, as is complaining about unequal pay between a minority and non minority employee.

Are you being paid differently at work because you are a woman or any other minority group? Contact the San Jose employment discrimination attorneys at the Costanzo Law Firm for help.

Sources:

nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/your-rights/your-rights-to-discuss-wages

eeoc.gov/statutes/equal-pay-act-1963