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Jordan Boyle: employment lawyer on the House passing new pay transparency laws · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks'd be follow
• 0:12
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  Speaker 2: Now you can officially tell anyone right now what you're
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  Speaker 2: getting paid, because a new law passed last night that
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  Speaker 2: ends the right of employers to place gag orders on
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  Speaker 2: staff talking about their salaries. Jordan Boyle is an employment
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  Speaker 2: lawyer at Diaberg Drayton Law and with us. Hey, Jordan,
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  Speaker 2: how you going arm Well, thank you? So, if you've
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  Speaker 2: got the contract, the clause in your contract that gags you,
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  Speaker 2: you can now just ignore it.
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  Speaker 3: Well to a certain extent, the law prohibits. The new
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  Speaker 3: law prohibits employers from taking adverse action that's defined in
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  Speaker 3: the act, and essentially it's basically stopping you from being
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  Speaker 3: promoted or afforded the same terms and conditions of other employees.
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  Speaker 3: There are potentially actions that employers could take in terms
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  Speaker 3: of breach of contract if they felt like they were
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  Speaker 3: damaged by an employee disclosing their remuneration. That'll be something
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  Speaker 3: interesting in terms of how case law develops.
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  Speaker 2: What do you foresee them like, what would be the
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  Speaker 2: reason for them being able to do that?
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  Speaker 3: Well, perhaps if an employee disclose that in bad faith,
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  Speaker 3: maybe to a competitor or something to try and undermine
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  Speaker 3: an employer's business. That could be something that an employer
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  Speaker 3: might choose to take action against, but it sort of
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  Speaker 3: prevents basically employees from not having the same terms conditions
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  Speaker 3: as other employees and their employment might have.
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  Speaker 2: Do you think employers have to brace themselves now for
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  Speaker 2: a whole bunch of grumpy employees turning up because they've
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  Speaker 2: been sharing their payover office strengths?
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  Speaker 3: I think the first question is will people actually change
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  Speaker 3: their behavior in terms of disclosing their pay. Obviously some
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  Speaker 3: employers had these clauses, but they're not particularly common. It's
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  Speaker 3: not something I see a lot in my practice, and
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  Speaker 3: I think we already have a bit of a culture
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  Speaker 3: in terms of your pay is private for a lot
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  Speaker 3: of people, and they don't necessarily disclose that to other employees. Now,
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  Speaker 3: the people may feel a little bit more freedom to ask,
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  Speaker 3: but you don't have to share. But people may choose
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  Speaker 3: this year and then yeah, employers may face some difficult
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  Speaker 3: conversations where they might have to justify their decisions as
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  Speaker 3: to why someone's paid different.
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  Speaker 2: But they can they though Jordan, because what if you
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  Speaker 2: go to the boss and you go, well, Laura is
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  Speaker 2: getting paid more than me, and I don't think that's fair.
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  Speaker 2: Can the boss actually tell you why they're paying Laura
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  Speaker 2: more or is that is there a privacy privacy problem there?
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  Speaker 3: Well, I think it really comes down to why they're
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  Speaker 3: paying Lawa more than someone else, and they probably should
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  Speaker 3: more focus on your performance and the reasons why you
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  Speaker 3: are paid what you are paid.
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  Speaker 2: Which is a very bumming out conversation, isn't it.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, To an extent, it's sort of hard to say, well,
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  Speaker 3: Laura is better at a job than you, or or
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  Speaker 3: Laura smashes it. It's probably more to say, you know,
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  Speaker 3: there's some areas you can improve if you want to
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  Speaker 3: get paid. But there are obviously a range of factors.
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  Speaker 3: You know, it can be performance, it can come down
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  Speaker 3: to whether someone was you know, poach from a competitor,
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  Speaker 3: and sometimes you just got to pay more when you
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  Speaker 3: go to the mark then what you might be paying
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  Speaker 3: a current employee, for example.
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  Speaker 2: So it'd be so nally Jordan, thanks very much, appreciate it,
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  Speaker 2: Jordan Boyle, Employment lawyer, die Berg Drayton Law. I think
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  Speaker 2: employers need this like a hole in.
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