Asking someone how much they make in a year and you might be told not to be too nosey but ask someone about their salary at work, however, can get you fired. The US Senate blocked the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would have protected workers’ rights to compare and discuss their wages at work, a law aimed at dismantling workplace “pay secrecy” policies, which would have strengthened safeguards against discrimination at work regards pay. Wage discrimination for women and minorities has persisted in large part because workers can be banned from discussing compensation levels with co-workers. The Paycheck Fairness Act would have shielded workers from retaliation if they discuss their salaries with co-workers. Employers would have had to “prove that pay disparities exist for legitimate, job-related reasons.”
Millions of workers remain effectively gagged at work. According to a 2003 study, over one-third of private sector employers surveyed admitted to having specific rules prohibiting employees from discussing their pay with co-workers. A 2011 survey estimated that 50 percent of workers are subject to some kind of restriction on discussing their pay with coworkers—slightly more women than men, with the largest concentration among private sector workers (about 60 percent, compared to less than 20 percent of public workers).
Many of these workers will never even know that they’ve unfairly benefited from or suffered from unequal pay. Ultimately, the big winner in this game of secrecy is the boss, who profits directly from the ignorance and pliability of workers who don’t grasp their own economic situation.
In unionized workplaces, where there is additional protection for organizing-related activities, the National Labor Relations Board and the civil courts have consistently sided with workers, ruling that under the National Labor Relations Act, wage discussions should be considered “concerted activity for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection.”
Employers have defended their restraints on workplace speech as a business prerogative, as if payscales were “trade secrets,” or by suggesting that too much disclosure leads to “jealousies and strife among employees.” In other words, if workers really knew what their bosses were doing, their anger would start to unravel the complacency, along with ingrained fear and anxiety, that employers use to keep their labor obedient and their production chains running smoothly.
In capitalism, the real depths of of the wealth gap are not between coworkers but between workers and the CEOs on top. Workers are, of course, trained to view such inequalities as central pillars of the corporate edifice, just as society has normalized the interlocking inequalities in race and gender that are plainly on display in our communities and workplaces every day.
Millions of workers remain effectively gagged at work. According to a 2003 study, over one-third of private sector employers surveyed admitted to having specific rules prohibiting employees from discussing their pay with co-workers. A 2011 survey estimated that 50 percent of workers are subject to some kind of restriction on discussing their pay with coworkers—slightly more women than men, with the largest concentration among private sector workers (about 60 percent, compared to less than 20 percent of public workers).
Many of these workers will never even know that they’ve unfairly benefited from or suffered from unequal pay. Ultimately, the big winner in this game of secrecy is the boss, who profits directly from the ignorance and pliability of workers who don’t grasp their own economic situation.
In unionized workplaces, where there is additional protection for organizing-related activities, the National Labor Relations Board and the civil courts have consistently sided with workers, ruling that under the National Labor Relations Act, wage discussions should be considered “concerted activity for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection.”
Employers have defended their restraints on workplace speech as a business prerogative, as if payscales were “trade secrets,” or by suggesting that too much disclosure leads to “jealousies and strife among employees.” In other words, if workers really knew what their bosses were doing, their anger would start to unravel the complacency, along with ingrained fear and anxiety, that employers use to keep their labor obedient and their production chains running smoothly.
In capitalism, the real depths of of the wealth gap are not between coworkers but between workers and the CEOs on top. Workers are, of course, trained to view such inequalities as central pillars of the corporate edifice, just as society has normalized the interlocking inequalities in race and gender that are plainly on display in our communities and workplaces every day.
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