Workers Still Being Punished For Talking About Wages

by Jill Bond

Last week, according to Think Progress, T-Mobile was found guilty of violating national labor laws when it prohibited employees from talking about their wages amongst themselves. Employers don’t like this because then you’ll know when they’re screwing you over. T-Mobile violated the National Labor Relations Act, which protects employees’ right to share this information as part of collective bargaining efforts, unless you’re a supervisor.
Though T-Mobile was held accountable, many Americans aren’t aware that these protections apply to them in circumstances outside of collective bargaining. And of course, businesses aren’t going to fill you in on that.
According to a 2010 survey from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, around half of all employees are either discouraged from talking about wages with each other or outright told to keep their mouths shut or face consequences. And employers can do this because consequences for them are “quite limited,” according to Cynthia Estlund, a professor at New York University School of Law.
This is why women often don’t know what their male counterparts are making, which helps fuel the gender pay gap. The discrimination continues against women even though the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act restored women’s rights that had been stripped of them by the Roberts Supreme Court in 2007. The law still doesn’t go far enough.
There is a way we can fix this. In addition to the executive order that President Obama signed last year banning federal contractors from having salary secrecy policies, the Paycheck Fairness Act — which expands equal pay laws for women, prohibits employers from retaliating against employees for discussing their wages, and requires proof that gaps in wages are based on factors other than gender — is being reintroduced this week.
Though the bill would help close the gender pay gap and protect all employees, Republicans in Congress, including every female Senate Republican, have repeatedly blocked it. How they can say that having transparency and fairness is wages is a bad thing? Protections such as these should be in place across the board for all American workers.