I can't remember the exact phrasing but years ago my boss said at the team meeting something about not discussing salaries, and someone said later "I don't think you can say that" and he was like "oh, ok". The message was delivered though.
So, assuming you have evidence of the chain of events:
- Group shares salary openly - Employer says: "you cannot do that", someone responds: "You can't say that", employer: "oh, ok" - Group continues sharing salary - Employer shortly thereafter fires 2 members that had shared their salary citing other reasons ("You had 2 1-minute late attendance events within the last 2 weeks")
If I'm on that jury, if that's all the evidence presented, that gets me to a "preponderance of evidence" that the termination was wrongful. At that point, I would need to see some evidence from the employer that the attendance events leading to the firing was not pretextual.
And things are rarely black-and-white. If your boss thinks you're a douche, it will hurt your career. If your next performance review is a 7 instead of a 9, that might not lead to termination now, but it prevents career growth, and gets you sacked next layoff.
I don't think anyone would every get laid off JUST for sharing salary info, but it would push a lot of people over the edge.
All I'm saying is be careful about how you do it.
Don't know about the US, but in countries with strong (or existing) worker unions the unions would jump at that kind of case to help the employee with expenses, legal counsel, and what have you.
Unions definitely have their problems, but keeping the employers on their toes about actually breaking the law is one of their big benefits.
Of course all that doesn't help with all the other things you brought up, so there's that.
Getting fired for sharing salary information is not high up on my list of concerns, in part for that reason.
Maybe. Depends on the state, the complaint, and the lawyer. Several states allow/force the loser to pay legal fees, to allow small-fry folks with legit complaints to fight against larger orgs with money to spend.
Lawyers may also take cases on contingency, or you may be able to find legal aid / pro-bono / reduced rates.
There are also lots of levers available via state or provincial labor boards. These will vary greatly, and may not replace a lawyer or lawsuit -- but some will.
> Law suits burn bridges (you'll never get a recommendation from an employer you've sued).
They already fired you for reasons that are "wrongful" -- the bridges are already burned. Were they going to give you a good recommendation before the lawsuit? Probably not. Maybe they didn't, and that's why there are lawyers involved.
> Law suits prevent future jobs (would you hire someone who sued a previous employer?). And wrongful termination isn't the end.
Depends on the role and hiring pool.
For roles that are harder to fill, or situations where I'm willing to take a good hard look at the candidate then maybe. Like, these are public records, and if I'm on the fence I could always just get a copy of those records. Plus there is plenty of shitty behavior on the part of employers -- no shortage of stories about it here on HN -- so I'm willing to give a qualified candidate the benefit of the doubt.
Totally agree with your point if this is for a role where I get 500-1000+ resumes -- plenty of talent out there, so why settle for someone who picked a fight?
I don't know how many employers check that sort of thing, but I know that if you sue your landlord in NYC, no matter how justified, once it shows up in public records nobody will rent to you. I know this because I ran across court documents where the court matter-of-factly acknowledged it.
This sort of thing is why I think frivolous lawsuits are greatly exaggerated.
I'm positive the company would have evidence that the terminated individuals were late by 1 minute on two separate occasions. But the company might also have evidence that other employees were also late and not terminated.
You can pretty easily create an evidentiary trail that "Person X did thing Y, and was then terminated". What's harder is creating an evidentiary trail that "Other people at the company are also regularly terminated for thing Y".
If the company really does fire every employee that has two 1-minute tardiness', then it's going to be a real struggle to claim the firing was pretextual. If this firing is the first time the company has fired someone for those reasons, the company is in real trouble.
