Employers often mandate pay secrecy restricting employees from discussing wages with their coworkers. The school of thought being that salary discussions would affect morale and company productivity. Here's the potential legal mistake:
3. Mandating confidentiality of wage information. Remember the National Labor Relations Act? Under Section 7 of the NLRA, employees may now legally discuss wages in the workplace with limited exceptions. By maintaining a policy or practice that restricts employee freedom in this regard, an employer violates Section 8(a)(1) of the Act.
Now, here's where the "limited exceptions" comes into play. Employees are legally allowed to have such discussions, but the law does not require that employers allow employees to do so during assigned work hours. Caution: If you prohibit employees from discussing pay during assigned work hours, ensure that you are placing the same prohibition on other conversations that are unrelated to work. Other limits pertain to the content of discussions (protected information) as well as how the employee came into possession of the information (unauthorized access to employee information), etc.
Review your policies and practices to ensure you're not in violation.
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