Comstock's magazine 1119 - November 2019 | Page 26

n EVIL HR LADY
DILEMMA OF THE MONTH
CAN YOU USE A COWORKER’S
SALARY AS LEVERAGE
FOR A RAISE?
by Suzanne Lucas
ILLUSTRATION: JOHN CHASE
I
just found out a coworker is making more than I
am, even though I have been here longer. How can
I bring this up to my manager without giving away
how I found out? Can I use this as leverage for a raise?
A
26
comstocksmag.com | November 2019
WELL, THE FIRST QUESTION IS, HOW DID
YOU FIND OUT?
Did you hack into the human re-
sources system and download every-
one’s salary? Did you sneak into your
boss’s office when she ran to the ladies
room and looked at her sent emails to
find the offer letter for your coworker?
If that is how you found out, then, yeah,
you don’t want to bring that up.
But if you were talking with your
coworker, and he said, “Ugh, I’m so dis-
appointed in my annual raise. I thought
for sure this would bring me to $80,000,
but I’m stuck here at $78,000,” then
there’s no reason not to bring it up.
OK, there’s no legal reason not to
bring it up. As long as you are nonman-
agement employees, the National Labor
Relations Act protects your right to dis-
cuss working conditions with your co-
workers, and that includes salaries.
The California Equal Pay Act ex-
pands on these rights and gives you even
more protection to talk about wages. It
also limits the reasons people perform-
ing “substantially similar” duties can
have different salaries. According to
the Department of Industrial Relations’
frequently asked questions page on the
Equal Pay Act, it limits differences to:
• seniority;
• merit;
• a system that measures production;
• a “bona fide factor other than sex,
race, or ethnicity.”
That last one can be a bit tricky, but,
thankfully, California has given some
examples that include education, train-
ing and experience. The differences
aren’t limited to those three factors, but
you’d probably be hard-pressed to find
something different that a court would
say was a “bona fide factor.”