By Cassandra Carroll

Earlier this year, the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would have functioned to ban “pay secrecy” policies in the workplace and prohibit retaliation against employees for disclosing compensation information, languished in Congress. President Barack Obama then sidestepped the Congress and signed Executive Order 13665: Non-Retaliation for Disclosure of Compensation Information. EO 13665 includes the same pay secrecy prohibitions previously set forth in the proposed Paycheck Fairness Act, but its scope is far more limited, as it applies only to federal contractors. Similar anti-pay secrecy protections have existed, under an interpretation of Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act. And California employers have their own peculiar version of anti-pay secrecy rules to worry about.

California Labor Code section 232—banning pay secrecy policies and prohibiting discipline on the basis of wage disclosure—emerged on the scene way back in 1985. (That was when Marty McFly first introduced the “hover board”; you’re so late to the party, Tony Hawk.) Although Section 232 has rarely been litigated, President Obama’s hard push for anti-pay secrecy laws has raised employee consciousness of this issue, and we expect an uptick of related claims in this area.

Section 232 states that an employer must not:
Continue Reading California’s Anti-Pay Secrecy Law: It’s Not Just a Federal Contractor Problem