this post was submitted on 09 May 2026
713 points (99.6% liked)
me_irl
7628 readers
3029 users here now
All posts need to have the same title: me_irl it is allowed to use an emoji instead of the underscore _
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Talk about your salaries, people! The only benefit of keeping it secret is to your employer who can pay you less and get away with it.
Yes, but the people you talk to have to do the same then.
I was talking to some coworkers a while back and one of them whined that he earned so little. I told exactly what I got and he just goes "oh, then I don't earn the least" and never talks about his salary again.
Like... At least tell me what you get!?
Btw. no one else said anything about their salary so I got exactly zero information out of that interaction.
This is easy. Thank him for his advice that helped you get “a big raise,” then work him.
Your coworker is an ass.
Did you ask them?
At that point I just didn't want to anymore. It's also been a few years and now I have colleagues with whom I regularly talk about our salaries.
That definitely means you earn the least.
(achshually) It only means you earn less than him.
Okay, fair. I got 1 bit of information. 😞
I think a lot about how one place I worked at, when people started talking salaries, Management said that was a fireable offense.
Personally I think everyone involved in saying that should have been barred from management roles for life.
But because most of the people working there were in their early 20s, with no power alone and no organization, they went along with it.
Some years later the company build a salary comparison tool on their website.
Lol, that was literally illegal. Although I don't know whether the NRLB has any bearing anymore.
But by making taking about salaries illegal. It was explicitly considered by the courts to be anti-labor practices. It was used to prevent employees from forming a union.
Unfortunately, laws only matter when they're enforced and people have equal access. It's easier to management to just break the law and, in the unlikely event someone challenges it, deal with it using their vast resources.
That's why I think the penalities for anti labor actions should be capital (sorry, pun). If you do anything to fuck with labor, your life should be ruined. Assets seized, lifetime prohibition of management roles.
Moreover, contrary to popular belief, unenforced regulations are worse than nothing and should be repealed by any responsible governance, because they effectively institutionalize the abuse they claim to prevent by concealing the abuse and increasing the competitive advantage the abuse offers. This is why indexes often use them as a proxy gauging regulatory capture.
Over here it's not "illegal", they just fire you with a different reason if you even as much as mention what you earn to a coworker.
They should sue. Even at will doesn't let you fire for illegal reasons and that's an illegal reason. Employment attorneys take cases on contingency and live for these sort of slam dunk, easy win cases.
You would still have to prove beyond reasonable doubt that your firing was due to the salary discussion and not something else.
It's like when a cop wants to pull you over: if they follow you long enough you'll make enough of a mistake for the pretense.
No, this would be a civil suit, so it's just preponderance of the evidence. Not hard to meet that for a case like this.
Last guy who tried this was accused of stealing and got into huge trouble despite there being no proof.
I'm all for comparing salaries and I've done so for my previous jobs, but my current job has left me concerned to discuss openly. I've been struggling internally about it.
Long story short is that one of my coworkers is a real malcontent that made a huge fuss when I got a promotion. They are the reason that I don't state my pay when I encourage my other coworkers to seek higher wages and coach them on negotiating raises. I'm worried that the sourpuss won't use the information as a tool to improve their own situation and instead cause more trouble for me.
How could they use that information to cause trouble with management? Presumably management already knows your salary
Dealing with someone that decides to try sabotaging your career, whether they are successful or not, is typically drama to be avoided.
When I got the promotion, they started sending whiny emails up the management chain. My immediate supervisor that I worked with to get the promotion was then put under scrutiny and essentially told "make this problem go away". It ended up with my supervisor having to give the coworker a detailed report on all of the reasons they didn't get the promotion and I did, leading to a tense work environment.
I can easily imagine this coworker doing the same shit if they heard my salary. There are two main reasons that I keep quiet:
I do advocate for raises for my coworkers to them and to my supervisor, and I wouldn't feel hesitant to state actual numbers if it weren't for that troublesome coworker.
I might just be neurotic about this, idk. It just really sucked when they got butt-hurt and made my work life way more stressful.