Talking about pay and wages may still be taboo, but it is absolutely the right of every worker to do so. In fact, it’s protected by federal law. But a lot of things employers do are against the law. They just rely on workers not knowing their rights.
Such was the case, it seems, with a worker who was threatened over a pay conversation they didn’t even consent to. Their boss pulled in HR and even a company attorney to try and basically scare this employee into compliance, but they took to Reddit for a gut check.
The worker posted to Reddit because they were deeply unnerved by the meeting they were pulled into by their boss, her boss’s lawyer, and two representatives from Human Resources. The latter two’s participation is particularly shocking given the blatant illegality of what happened in the meeting.
“My director said it’s ‘legal’ to fire employees who discuss their wages if it causes ‘distress’ to the agency or if the agency is part of a ‘bargaining unit,'” the worker wrote in their Reddit post. Sounds fishy to you? Yeah, it sounded fishy to them, too.
“This doesn’t sound right to me,” they wrote. “From what I understand, the National Labor Relations Act protects employees’ rights to discuss wages and working conditions, whether or not they’re unionized.” Yep. Which makes the audacity on display here pretty wild.
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This story begins to sound more and more like an extremely lucrative labor lawsuit the more information the worker provided. They explained that they recently found out that an employee who does far less than they do gets paid quite a bit more.
But this information was provided without them even asking, and in fact, made clear they didn’t want to discuss it. “She told me even after I said I didn’t want to know,” they wrote. When they went to their boss to discuss their concerns, “my boss told me wage discussions are a ‘fireable offense’ (which I think is illegal).”
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“Now I’ve got her and HR telling me it’s perfectly fine to fire people for this if it ’causes distress,'” they went on to explain. But they are certain they are being lied to. So certain, in fact, that they recorded the entire meeting, which an attorney is going to be very excited to hear.
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It’s hard to know if this group of bosses and HR drones is insane or just incompetent, but they are going to end up in court if they don’t get their act together. Discussing wages is a federally protected right of workers under the National Labor Relations Act.
The website for the Act and the National Labor Relations Board, which currently seems to be broken (you can draw your own conclusions as to why), may be experiencing technical issues. However, despite any attempts by the current administration to obscure the fact, the law remains unchanged, and your rights remain intact.
The Act is explicit: Employers can neither prohibit nor punish workers for discussing wages, and while employers will frequently put in place their own internal policies forbidding it, those rules hold absolutely no weight whatsoever. They are simply there to intimidate workers on the assumption that they will not know their rights, as most don’t.
So what should this worker do? For starters, document everything. As mentioned, they have already recorded the meeting, and given that they live in a one-party consent state, that recording is now legal evidence. Oopsie!
But they should also send an email, with their personal address BCC’d, to everyone involved, summarizing the meeting and what was said to establish a paper trail. Redditors also suggested including a “clarification” question about who else they should and should not discuss pay with, to goad them into not ignoring the email.
Then, they should immediately contact an employment lawyer, most of whom will consult with workers for free, and share this evidence with him or her. A grievance will likely be filed with the NLRB and/or the relevant state labor authority, and there may be grounds for a lawsuit as well. Hopefully, this worker follows these steps and intimidates their boss and HR team right back, and maybe even drags them into court like they deserve.
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John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.
