Employee Reprimanded After Admitting To Co-Workers They Received A Pay Raise
They're wondering if they actually did something wrong, but employment law is crystal clear.
Prostock-studio | Shutterstock When you get a raise at work, it's an exciting milestone, and you want to tell everyone you know all about it.
But when it comes to talking to your co-workers, it can quickly get dicey — even if it shouldn't. And for one worker online, this awkwardness quickly escalated to a workplace conflict that's not only unfair but might even be illegal.
An employee was scolded by their boss for telling a co-worker they got a raise.
Pay transparency is a hot-button issue nowadays, and workers are often urged to talk openly about pay as a way to move the needle for everyone. Less secrecy helps all employees advocate for fairer treatment, of course.
But as this worker shared in their Reddit post, these situations can all too often backfire when bosses subtly retaliate. "I recently got a pay raise, along with one other colleague," the worker wrote. And while they were excited, they felt a bit awkward about it because "it felt like we were being given special treatment."
When their co-workers asked, they were honest, and their colleagues quickly used the info to ask for raises.
"I share an office with two other coworkers," they went on to explain. So naturally, after their secret meeting with leadership about their raise, their colleagues were all kinds of curious about the nature of the discussion.
"I just mentioned the pay increase, and they responded casually," they said. Their co-workers congratulated them, "and that was it — no one brought it up again." That is, until two weeks later.
"My boss called me in and told me there was a problem," the worker wrote. "Apparently, someone from my office had gone to them asking for a raise, too, referencing mine as a reason."
You can probably guess how their boss reacted. "My boss then told me that I shouldn't have discussed it with coworkers because you never know who might turn around and use it against you.'"
That's a claim bosses frequently make to dissuade people from talking about pay, but it makes no sense, really — the only entity your co-workers would use it against is the employer itself.
Talking openly about pay is a right of nearly all workers enshrined in the National Labor Relations Act.
The problem with the boss's edict is that, at least for now, workers do have some rights, and pay transparency is chief among them.
The National Labor Relations Act explicitly grants workers the right to discuss their pay not only with their co-workers but with "labor organizations, worker centers, the media, and the public." So, pretty much whoever they please.
Despite this, many companies even go further than this person's boss and include clauses in employee handbooks and even employment contracts forbidding employees from discussing pay with each other or anyone else. But these clauses are basically meaningless because of the NLRA.
As a Reddit commenter put it, "They do it to keep you under their thumb. So if your boss complains you can just tell him 'It's federally protected.'"
Of course, this doesn't stop your employer from retaliating in other ways and finding, or even ginning up, some other reason to fire you.
For this reason, labor lawyers say that any disputes like this and all communications with leadership going forward should be documented either on paper or in an email recap. That way, if and when you are terminated unjustly, there is a paper trail that will help an attorney establish that you were wrongfully terminated.
The bottom line is that there may be lots of reasons why it's a better strategic move to keep your pay cards close to the vest, but if you feel like talking about it the law is firmly on your side.
Don't be intimidated into thinking otherwise.
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.