In British Columbia can an employer punish employees for sharing wage/salary information with colleagues?
<p>While sharing salary information is often discouraged by employers, in the province of British Columbia, Canada, are employers legally allowed to punish (e.g. fire, reprimand, etc.) an employee who shares wage/salary information with their colleagues? Is there legislation that prevents this and would that legislation overrule any potentially conflicting clauses in an employment contract?</p>
<p>Note that a <a href="https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/42405/in-canada-can-employer-force-employees-not-to-discuss-wage">very similar question</a> was asked previously regarding laws in Canada. However, most employment is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_labour_law#:%7E:text=Employment%20outside%20of%20federally%20regulated%20industries%20falls%20under%20provincial%20authority%20for%20most%20civil%20(including%20contract)%20law." rel="noreferrer">regulated provincially</a> and, at the time of writing, the only answer to that question relies on a law from a different province (Ontario) and so is not relevant in BC.</p>
<p>For the purpose of this question, you are welcome to assume that the employer/employee is not in a federally regulated industry (i.e. that they are in a provincially regulated industry).</p>

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<p>are employers legally allowed to punish (e.g. fire, reprimand, etc.) an employee who shares wage/salary information with their colleagues?</p>
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<p>No. <a href="https://www.bclaws.gov.bc.ca/civix/document/id/complete/statreg/96244_01#section8" rel="noreferrer">Section 8 of the BC Labour Relations Code</a> preserves for the employee &quot;<em>the freedom to communicate to an employee a statement of fact [...] with respect to the employer's business</em>&quot;. More conclusively, <a href="https://www.bclaws.gov.bc.ca/civix/document/id/complete/statreg/96244_01#section64" rel="noreferrer">section 64</a> entitles a person to disclose --except for purposes of picketing-- &quot;<em>information [...] relating to terms or conditions of employment or work done or to be done by that person</em>&quot;. Wage/salary information clearly is a condition of employment.</p>
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<p>the only answer to that question relies on a law from a different province (Ontario) and so is not relevant in BC.</p>
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<p>That answer is relevant to Canada (also the question was about Canada). That answer cites a statute from Ontario because that is the jurisdiction that the asker specified. It would be tiresome as well as futile to provide the statutory equivalent of every province on a matter that the provinces are very unlikely to legislate materially differently.</p>

<p><a href="/questions/tagged/australia" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged &#39;australia&#39;" rel="tag">australia</a></p>
<h2>Wage information is confidential: but only on the employer</h2>
<p>In Australia, an employer must keep the remuneration of their employees confidential (subject to legal disclosure requirements).</p>
<p>However, employees can take out full-page ads in the newspaper about them if they want. Whether such information is disclosed or discussed within a workplace or more broadly is cultural, not legal.</p>
<p>An employer attempting to discipline an employee for disclosing or discussing their remuneration would be breaking the law.</p>

<p>In many countries, this would directly conflict with the legal requirement that equal work be equally payed.</p>
<p>One of the very reasons why it was (or often still is) a fact that men earn more for the same job than women, is because salaries are kept secret. If it was illegal to share information about ones earnings, this could not be counteracted on. The employees need to have a way of telling whether their wage is fair compared to what others get for a similar job.</p>

<p>I called the BC Employment Standards Act and spoke with an Info Line agent about this topic. According to the agent, private (non-federally regulated and non-unionized) companies are governed by the <a href="https://www.bclaws.gov.bc.ca/civix/document/id/complete/statreg/00_96113_01" rel="nofollow noreferrer">ESA</a> and there is nothing in the ESA preventing a company from stipulating in their HR policy that employees maintain salary confidentiality. As such, presumably you could be terminated with just cause and therefore not be provided with any type of termination compensation if you do disclose salary information. The BC Labour Code (which governs unions) and the Canadian Labour Code (which governs federally-regulated businesses) supposedly both have provisions for employees and their freedom to speak. It's disappointing that the ESA is different.</p>
<p>I have not myself read the ESA in its entirety, but trusting the agent's interpretation to be correct. The ESA agent suggested to me to write to the Minister of Labour and to my local MLA to promote for change in the ESA. If anyone has additional input on this topic, I would welcome it.</p>

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