1

In the USA there is a strong and widespread taboo against sharing details of your salary with co-workers. Many company handbooks explicitly prohibit it. But to my knowledge, it's only cultural; I don't know of any laws against it.

Suppose I break taboo and tell a co-worker my salary (especially outside the workplace) and my boss finds out. Does my boss/company have any legal recourse against me? Can they legally punish me, such as with a pay cut, or fire me?

Is it any different if I ask a co-worker their salary package, and they do or don't answer?

To be clear, I'm not asking about the social ramifications. I understand those quite well. I'm asking about the legal ramifications.

Mar
  • 1,531
  • 2
  • 13
  • 23
  • 2
    I thought legal stuff is not the remit of this site. Ask a lawyer. – Ed Heal Apr 07 '16 at 22:19
  • @EdHeal This question definitely comes close to the edge, but it is something that most HR reps would be able to answer without having to consult the legal department. This answer in meta describes the line pretty well, and I think I'm on the "safe" side of it for Workplace SE. – Mar Apr 07 '16 at 22:28
  • 1
    voted to close because this seems to me company-specific. I would think if two employees choose to discuss their salaries with each other it's their right, but we can't specifically address what the potential impacts might be. – mcknz Apr 07 '16 at 22:34
  • @mcknz How is this company-specific? – Mar Apr 07 '16 at 22:40
  • Company A may have a policy that says employees who discuss salary will be fired. Company B may have a policy that allows employees to discuss salary. Clearly there can be different legal implications depending on the company. – mcknz Apr 07 '16 at 22:46
  • I'm not asking about company-specific policy, I'm asking about whether a no-talking policy would have any teeth if I violated it. – Mar Apr 07 '16 at 22:47
  • still not sure we can provide a good, definitive answer to this. If it's a general labor law question, that would be outside the scope of the site, simply because we wouldn't want someone to get into legal problems based on unqualified advice/opinion given here. – mcknz Apr 07 '16 at 23:04
  • 1
    Do you actually have a clause in the contract or company policy that says "employees are prohibited from disclosing their salary to another employee" or are you just talking about consequences of "breaking taboo?" – Brandin Apr 07 '16 at 23:21
  • 2
    Voted to reopen. The linked question is about the taboo of discussing wages and strategies to get coworkers to open up, which is definitely not what this question is about. The legality of wage discussions is clearly defined for the US at the federal level and this question is on-topic as per the meta question that the OP himself linked. – Lilienthal Apr 08 '16 at 08:25
  • Whether a company handbook disallows it or not, it is still legal to discuss pay with co-workers. That is a right in the US: http://www.askamanager.org/2012/01/can-an-employer-require-you-to-keep-your-salary-confidential.html – thursdaysgeek Apr 08 '16 at 15:48
  • I am going to point out that while it is not illegal, if the company does not want you to disclose, they can find always find an excuse to get rid of you if they find out you did so. In the US in many states, they can let you go for no reason at all.It is risky behavior to disclose your salary and pretty close to 100% of the time one of the two people in the conversation leaves unhappy. This is a no win conversation. – HLGEM Apr 08 '16 at 15:49
  • @HLGEM If a company can let you go for no reason, this isn't a good reason in itself not to discuss salary. If you and a coworker want to discuss it, you should. On the other hand, if you don't want to discuss it (there may be good reasons not to), don't. – Brandin Apr 08 '16 at 21:57
  • @Brandin, I am just saying that discussing it when the company does not want you to may not be without consequences even though discussing it is legal. It is very rarely in your best interests to discuss salarly, you can't use the info to leverage more money, it will only make you or the other person unhappy, and BTW some people lie when asked about their salary, so you can;t trust what you heard anyway. Its a lose-lose situation. – HLGEM Apr 11 '16 at 13:55

1 Answers1

3

There is no legal recourse from asking or telling anyone your salary. However, telling a coworker your salary is bad for a couple reasons:

1) You could find out you are very underpaid, or vice versa, your coworker finds out he's underpaid. This causes rifts in the team and can potentially cause people to leave.

2) If your boss is smart, he'll likely not favor you asking people their salaries. It causes issues when people know how much each other make. Consider how this might affect your work relationships.

Why do you want to know anyway? Your coworkers' salaries are between them and the company, not them and you. Asking for an increase in pay because "my coworkers are making more" isn't a viable argument.

Lawrence Aiello
  • 11,882
  • 7
  • 37
  • 55
  • " no legal recourse" - Are you sure? Company confidentiality perhaps as written in some contracts that salary is discused with others – Ed Heal Apr 07 '16 at 22:23
  • 1
    there is legal recourse in some cases - and very likely in this case since "the company handbook prohibits it" and it's likely the employee signed a document saying they would abide by the rules in it. You really should revise your answer... unless you're a lawyer and prepared to defend the OP – Jim Apr 07 '16 at 22:26
  • 1
    see http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/07/when-the-boss-says-dont-tell-your-coworkers-how-much-you-get-paid/374467/ – mcknz Apr 07 '16 at 22:27
  • @mcknz - good article. The laws must have literal no teeth, because most unlawful policies with consequences are avoided like the plague... and most states are "at will" employment, so there could be consequences that are hard to tie to breaking that particular rule. I thin the answer provided should still be altered, as it is apparently wrong for a different reason. – Jim Apr 07 '16 at 22:58
  • 2
    Employers do sometimes include unlawful policies because they either 1) don't know they are illegal, or 2) employees don't have the resources to go to court to force the employer to comply, or defend themselves if the company takes action against them. – mcknz Apr 07 '16 at 23:10
  • 2
    If your boss is smart, he will pay you a competitive wage that won't cause you to feel underpaid if your colleagues are on a different wage. – FiringSquadWitness Apr 07 '16 at 23:18
  • 1
    "Asking for an increase in pay because "my coworkers are making more" isn't a viable argument." It certainly can be. If my co-workers are making more then I am for equivalent work then that's certainly valuable for me to know. See Lily Ledbetter. Folks love markets with asymmetric information, at least they do if they're the one holding the superior information. – Charles E. Grant Apr 08 '16 at 00:31
  • 1
    It's a viable argument if your boss told you that you can't have a raise because you make more than anybody else already, or that the company can't afford higher salaries, and so on. From the bosses point of view, salary is a compromise between losing money and keeping an employ happy (and keeping him from leaving). The compromise has shifted in your favour if you find out the fact that you are paid less. – gnasher729 Apr 08 '16 at 08:57
  • 1
    I think a flat "telling a coworker your salary is bad" is a bit simplistic. Yes, there are possible problems, but there are also advantages (e.g., more information when negotiating salary for a new job) - so it's not so simple. Also note that there are places where salaries are effectively public (e.g. most of the public sector), so it's clearly not universally a problem. – sleske Apr 08 '16 at 10:35