Alaska Employment Law

Alaska employers, big and small, often try to bar their employees from discussing their wages.  This practice has been illegal for years (since at least 1992), as the NLRB recently emphasized:

[A]n employer rule which regards employee compensation and benefit information as confidential and prohibits employees from discussing such information with one another violates Section 8(a)(1) of the Act. . . .

Windstream Corp., 6-CA-35483 (May 23, 2008).  Even if the employer does not enforce the prohibition, it still violates the Act.

An employer may bar an employee from disclosing another employee’s compensation if the first employee learns of the information only through performance of formal work duties.  Thus, an employer may bar a supervisor or an HR employee from passing on salary information to other employees with no “need to know.”  

An illegal “don’t discuss wages” rule sets up the employer for a “equitable tolling” exception to any limitations defense under Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., Inc., 127 S.Ct. 2162 (2007), as Justice Ginsburg suggested in her comments at the recent Alaska Bar Association convention.

Thanks to George’s Employment Blawg for the pointer.