Here’s a question for you... would you tell your colleagues what you get paid? 

The reason I ask is because Labour MP Camilla Belich’s member’s bill has just been pulled from the biscuit tin in Parliament; and if she manages to get this thing passed, it will make it unlawful for bosses to stop you from talking about your pay.  

At the moment, some contracts don’t let you.  

You’re actually not allowed to tell anyone what you get paid. And the effect of that, of course, is that if you don’t know what Jimmy next to you gets paid and Jimmy doesn’t know what you get paid, then neither of you will realise if one is being paid significantly more than the other for doing exactly the same job.  

It basically means employees are flying a bit blind when they negotiate, and it definitely helps bosses to keep the wage bill down.  

I actually love the idea of this bill. I hope it passes.  

I think that what you get paid is your personal information, not your employer’s information, and so you should get to decide if you can share it or not.  

But... as much as I love it, I don’t think it’ll do that much good, because as I asked you... would you tell your colleagues what you get paid? The answer is probably not. 

Because ego right? Pay is an ego thing.  

There was a survey done into this last year... only 13% of employees say they’d be willing to share their pay details. So, even though it’s a great idea, and even though all employees would be better off (because knowledge is power), it’ll ultimately fail because most of us don’t want to talk about what we get paid. 

We all want to know what our colleagues get paid... but we don’t want to have to tell our colleagues what we get paid.  

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