jadelyn:

iwishicouldtellmystudents:

guerrillatech:

The National Labor Relations Act means that employees are absolutely allowed to discuss their pay, and trying to prevent them from doing so is literally a crime.

Yes.  For those who don’t know: if you’re in the U.S., you have a legal right to engage in concerted activity to improve your working conditions, which explicitly includes discussing your pay with other employees.  These rights apply to you whether you’re in a union or not - you do not have to be unionized to be protected from retaliation for engaging in concerted activity.  Do note that the NLRA specifically excludes some industries and employees - supervisors, government employees, transit employees, and independent contractors are not covered.  For the rest of us, here’s some more info on concerted activity from the NLRB’s website:  

Concerted activity - Federal law protects employees engaged in union activity, but that’s only part of the story. Even if you’re not represented by a union - even if you have zero interest in having a union - the National Labor Relations Act protects your right to band together with coworkers to improve your lives at work. You have the right to act with coworkers to address work-related issues in many ways. Examples include: talking with one or more co-workers about your wages and benefits or other working conditions, circulating a petition asking for better hours, participating in a concerted refusal to work in unsafe conditions, and joining with coworkers to talk directly to your employer, to a government agency, or to the media about problems in your workplace. Your employer cannot discharge, discipline, or threaten you for, or coercively question you about, this “protected concerted” activity. However, you can lose protection by saying things about your employer that are egregiously offensive or knowingly and maliciously false, or by publicly disparaging your employer’s products or services without relating your complaints to any labor controversy.

If your employer pulls this shit, or your manager verbally tries to discourage you from talking about your pay or other material working conditions (benefits, hours/scheduling, safety, etc), write down the details (time/date/who was present/what exactly was said) and file a charge with the NLRB via your local field office.  If employers aren’t held accountable for their bullshit, they’ll keep on doing it.  

Find your local field office here.