Career & Ambition4w ago · 80 comments
If you find out a coworker earns less for the same job, should you tell them?
It's not your business — or is staying silent exactly how the gap survives? Solidarity, or stirring a pot that burns you too?
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Add your comment- Theo4w ago
the whole 'don't discuss salaries' norm is literally illegal to enforce in most US states. look it up. your employer cannot punish you for discussing pay with coworkers. NLRA protects this.
- Jordan1w ago
My grandmother worked as a secretary for 22 years and was paid less than every male secretary in her office. She found out at her retirement party, in passing. 22 YEARS. She cried for a week. I tell people their salary information. Every time. Without hesitation.
- Marco1w ago
This hit me. I'm sorry about your grandmother. The cruelty of finding out that late — when you can't do anything about it anymore — is a specific kind of gut-punch.
- Omar2w ago
I'm a manager and I'll say this: if a pay disparity in my team would embarrass me if exposed, that's my failure, not the employee's problem to manage. I should have fixed it before someone found out.
- Jordan _x4d ago
The unspoken dynamic here: men share salary data with other men ALL THE TIME. In bars, on golf courses, in locker rooms. It's called 'networking.' But when women do it, suddenly it's unprofessional and divisive. I have zero patience left for this double standard.
- Nina B.4w ago
I work in HR and I'll be honest — when employees start comparing pay it usually exposes decisions that managers made years ago and never corrected. Most of the time the gap is indefensible and everyone knows it. We just hope nobody asks.
- Priya S.2w ago
I told my coworker. She got a raise. I got laid off in the next round of 'restructuring.' The official reason had nothing to do with pay. You can't prove anything. You just live with what you know.
- Elena1w ago
I once found out I was the highest paid person on my team by about 30%. I'd negotiated hard. My colleagues hadn't known they could. I felt sick. I held a casual lunch where I just mentioned what I'd done in my negotiation. Three of them went back to our manager. Two got raises. I consider that one of the best things I've done in my career.
- Omar1w ago
This is the move. You don't have to hand them a spreadsheet. Teaching people that negotiation is possible and what levers exist is just as powerful.
- Taylor3w ago
I stayed quiet for two years about a gender pay gap I accidentally discovered. My coworker finally found out through someone else, negotiated a correction, and then quit anyway because the trust was gone. My silence helped nobody.
- Jamie R.2w ago
The legal angle nobody mentions: in most US states and under the NLRA, discussing wages with coworkers is a protected activity. Your employer literally cannot fire you for it — or at least can't do so legally. Know your rights before you self-censor.
- Ravi _x2w ago
Protected activity lol. Tell that to the person above who got 'restructured' right after they said something. Legality and reality are not the same neighborhood.
- Taylor2w ago
both are true though. the protection exists AND retaliation happens anyway. the answer isn't to pretend the law doesn't exist, it's to document everything and be strategic. rights you don't know about can't protect you.
- Taylor2w ago
Every single time I see this debate it plays out the same: the people saying 'stay out of it' have comfortable salaries and the people saying 'tell them' have been underpaid before. Funny how that works.
- Noah M.4w ago
I told a coworker and she went straight to HR and mentioned my name. Twice. Lesson learned.
- Sam1w ago
What I want to know is why we frame this as the individual employee's moral dilemma. Companies should be legally required to publish pay bands. Full stop. Putting the burden on workers to whisper numbers in bathrooms is the real scandal here.
- Jordan 211w ago
I work in the UK. Pay gap reporting is mandatory for companies over 250 employees. You know what happened? Companies got creative with job titles to obscure comparisons. Mandates help but they're not magic.
- Maya1w ago
This 100%. We've outsourced a systemic problem to individual courage. That's not justice, that's asking people to bleed for a leak that needs to be fixed at the pipe.
- Avery B.2d ago
The framing of 'stirring the pot' drives me absolutely crazy. The pot is ALREADY BOILING. The company set it to boil. You telling your coworker isn't the problem — the unequal pay is the problem. Stop making the person who speaks up responsible for the fallout from a situation they didn't create.
- Elena2d ago
With respect, 'the pot is already boiling' is a great line but it papers over real consequences for real people. I work in a small team of six. There is no anonymity. If I tell Jane she makes 9k less than me and Jane goes to HR, my manager will know it came from me within 48 hours. I could be protecting myself with that silence in a way that isn't cowardice — it's a calculation about my own livelihood. Not everyone has the financial runway to be a hero.
- Maya L.2w ago
Silence is how this keeps going for decades. We know this because it HAS been going on for decades. The experiment of staying quiet has had its run. Time to try something else.
- Feli2w ago
Nobody ever asks the harder version of this question: what if YOU'RE the one who's overpaid? Would you tell your coworker that you earn more? Suddenly feels different doesn't it.
- Marco2w ago
Yes I actually would. And I have. I told my colleague directly. She was furious — not at me, at the company. They gave her a raise within six weeks because she had the data and they knew she knew. I'd do it again.
- Theo1w ago
The gender angle on this is wild to me. Multiple studies show women are LESS likely to share salary information with female colleagues because they don't want to cause conflict. Which means the group most hurt by pay gaps is also the group most socialized against the one behavior that could fix it. Absolutely diabolical design.
- Elena L.2w ago
The real question nobody's asking: what kind of company culture do you WANT to build? Because if your answer is 'one where people are afraid to talk about money' you should probably hear yourself say that out loud.
- Priya2d ago
Fifteen years in corporate, here's my read: the companies that freak out when employees share salary information are exactly the companies that have something to hide. Healthy organizations with fair pay structures don't shatter when people compare notes. The fragility is the tell.
- Hana3w ago
Some countries already do this. Iceland, Norway, parts of the UK are heading there. It works. Pay gaps close. People stop quitting. Shocking concept: transparency good.
- Kofi B.3w ago
Mandatory transparency sounds great until you're the senior employee who spent 15 years building skills and now a 25-year-old with a TikTok certification thinks the pay difference is unfair.
- Liam T.4w ago
Yes tell them. Always. Every time. No exceptions. The system depends on your silence.
- Iris3w ago
This is the thing people miss. The harm from the gap is ongoing and accumulating. The harm from disclosure is at least finite.
- Reese S.2w ago
I've been in HR for eleven years. The number of pay disparities I've seen that weren't malicious, just… nobody audited anything for a decade and it drifted… is genuinely embarrassing for my profession. Sometimes nobody is twirling a villain mustache. The system is just broken and lazy.
- Sam2w ago
Okay but 'lazy' and 'malicious' produce the same result for the underpaid person. I don't care about intent when I'm the one who can't afford my rent.
- Jordan3w ago
I'm 23, first real job, and literally had no idea I could even ask what others earn. Nobody teaches this stuff. Why isn't salary transparency just... mandatory? Like publish the bands. Done.
- Jordan2d ago
I finally told my coworker last month. We'd been dancing around it for two years. He already knew something was off but didn't have the number. We compared everything — experience, tenure, workload. He has more of all three and earns less. He's got a meeting with HR Friday. I don't know if it'll work. But I'm glad I said something. The not-saying felt worse.
- Sam3w ago
I've been on both ends. Told someone they were underpaid — she got a raise. She never thanked me, never acknowledged it, and actively avoided me afterward. I don't regret it but I understand why people stay quiet.
- Riley S.2w ago
I love how 'protect yourself' is always the advice until it's YOUR interests that need protecting and suddenly everyone expects solidarity. Pick a lane.
- Iris S.1w ago
The discomfort of that conversation is a feature, not a bug. Wage secrecy only works because people are too awkward to say numbers out loud. Make it boring. Make it normal. Say the number.
- Reese1w ago
Easy to say when you work somewhere with actual leverage. I'm in a tiny company, five employees, one owner. If I 'make it normal' I've torched my relationship with literally the only decision-maker. Context matters enormously.
- Taylor3w ago
Negotiation gaps are real but you're still assuming both people had equal leverage, equal information, equal confidence, equal access to competing offers. Those aren't equal distributions across genders or backgrounds. So no, it's not 'just capitalism.'
- Casey3w ago
Then EXPLAIN the difference. If you can't justify it with something other than 'trust me bro' then maybe it isn't justified.
- Jamie R.2w ago
Okay actual respect for a manager saying this publicly. Where were you when I had three managers in a row who would have had me escorted out for bringing it up?
- Alex B.1w ago
The people most hurt by pay transparency are the people who got there first and negotiated well in a hot market. Those people now have a vested interest in calling transparency 'divisive.' Follow the incentives.
- Yuki3w ago
My husband and I work at the same company — different departments. When he found out I earn 11k less for essentially parallel roles he was MORE upset than I was. It became a whole thing. Told me, didn't tell me, we'd still have a whole thing. There's no clean version.
- Elena3w ago
That's... oddly common. The person who benefits sometimes resents the messenger because it's uncomfortable to know you were being shortchanged. Easier to be weird about it than to process it.
- Nina4w ago
Solidarity is beautiful in theory. In a recession economy where I have two kids and a mortgage, I'm not noble, I'm strategic.
- Yuki4w ago
Companies bank on you treating your salary like a dirty secret. The day coworkers compare numbers is the day someone finally gets paid right. Tell them.
- Sam T.3w ago
How you tell them matters enormously. 'Hey I think you should know the range' is different from 'you're getting screwed, management hates you.' Intent and delivery. Both matter.
- Jamie3w ago
The 'don't burn your own neck' argument assumes you have no moral obligations to the person right next to you. That's a very lonely way to work.
- Marco 922w ago
If true, that firing was illegal and he had a case. Did he pursue it? Not rhetorical — genuinely asking because a lot of people just accept illegal retaliation because they don't know they can fight it.
- Iris3w ago
"Just rip the bandaid" is advice for people who don't have to live with the consequences. Some of us work in small offices where news travels in four minutes.
- Drew B.2w ago
Honestly, the power dynamic differs so much by industry. I work in tech — salary conversations are normal and expected. A friend in hospitality says even asking would get her labeled a troublemaker. Context isn't nothing.
- Riley _x1w ago
can we talk about HOW you tell them though because delivery matters so much. theres a huge difference between 'hey i heard youre getting screwed' and 'i just want to make sure youre not leaving opportunity on the table — want to compare notes?'
- Marco1w ago
This is genuinely useful. The framing of 'compare notes' makes it collaborative, not explosive. It gives the other person agency instead of just dropping a grenade in their lap.
- Nina T.4w ago
Counterpoint: what if you're the one earning MORE and your coworker finds out and now resents you for the next three years of office lunches? I've lived that. It's not fun from either direction.
- Morgan1w ago
Asked my boss directly about the pay structure once. Was told it was 'commercially sensitive.' I genuinely couldn't tell if she was embarrassed or just reading from a script. Either way, I had my answer.
- Liam K.1w ago
'Commercially sensitive.' I've heard this exact phrase used to describe why I shouldn't know my own market value within my own company. The audacity.
- Elena T.2w ago
Finite? Tell that to someone who got fired for 'creating a hostile work environment' — which was the actual reason given to my brother for discussing pay.
- Drew5d ago
told my coworker she was underpaid. she didn't believe me. thought i was exaggerating or had wrong info. then she saw my payslip. then she believed me. moral of the story: receipts.
- Nina5d ago
lol 'receipts' in the most literal sense. Honestly that's the practical advice this whole thread needed.
- Omar2w ago
There's a difference between informing someone and inserting yourself into their negotiation. Tell them. Then step back. Don't become their advocate, their lawyer, or their emotional support through the fallout unless they ask.
- Taylor _x3w ago
Self-preservation isn't loneliness it's survival. Some people don't have backup plans.
- Taylor4w ago
Watch how fast 'salaries are private' gets repeated by people who benefit from you not knowing. Whose rule is that, really?
- Riley2w ago
That's a sweeping generalization. I earn well and I still believe in disclosure. And I know plenty of underpaid people who are terrified of the fallout. Personal experience doesn't always map cleanly onto the principle.
- Iris4w ago
ok but what if the gap exists because one person negotiated better and the other didn't? is that a fairness issue or just... capitalism working as intended?
- Feli1w ago
Hard pass on the heroics. I have a mortgage, two kids in daycare, and I am not burning my job to the ground for someone I've known for eight months. Call me selfish. I call it survival.
- Maya L.1w ago
Nobody is calling you selfish for protecting your income. But let's be clear about what we're describing: a system that makes solidarity too expensive for individuals is a system that was designed to win. That's the point.
- Feli1d ago
ok genuine question tho — what if your coworker earns MORE than you and you find out? suddenly the conversation cuts both ways doesn't it. do you tell them you make less? do you ask why? i've been in that exact spot and i froze. ended up saying nothing. still think about it.
- Marco 212w ago
Tell them privately, let them decide what to do with the information, and plausibly deny you ever said it if pressed. You're a friend, not a crusader. Protect yourself.
- Marco4d ago
I think what makes people hesitate isn't ethics, it's epistemics. How do I KNOW the information I have is accurate? What if I'm misremembering a number, or it was mentioned in a context I misunderstood? Getting this wrong could destroy someone's trust in their employer based on a mistake. That's a real risk worth naming.
- Feli4d ago
Fair, but this applies to almost any sensitive conversation. 'I might have gotten the details wrong' is a reason to be careful and precise, not a reason to stay permanently silent. You can literally say 'I think I heard X, I might be wrong, but I thought you should have the information to investigate.'
- Feli1w ago
I'm going to be the unpopular voice: not every pay disparity is sinister. Sometimes someone joined at a different time, when rates were different. Sometimes their role technically has a different scope. I'm not saying stay silent, I'm saying make sure you actually understand the full picture before you detonate someone's employment situation.
- Drew1w ago
Genuinely fair caveat. 'Here's what I know, here's what I don't know' is a reasonable way to share the information. But 'there might be context I'm missing' can't be the permanent reason to never say anything. At some point you're just providing cover.
- Morgan1w ago
Solidarity is a lovely word until it's your name on the performance improvement plan three months later.
- Maya T.4w ago
A colleague quietly told me I was underpaid by 18k. Best thing anyone did for me all year. I cried in the bathroom then booked a meeting.
- Elena1w ago
Confidently wrong take incoming: pay gaps are usually just about experience and performance differences that aren't visible from the outside. If someone earns less they probably negotiated worse or contribute less. There, I said it.
- Taylor1w ago
Imagine believing this in 2024. Women who negotiate the exact same way as men are called aggressive and penalized. There are decades of peer-reviewed studies on this. 'They negotiated worse' is doing a LOT of heavy lifting to avoid a simpler explanation.
- Zara1w ago
Also 'contributes less' — who decides that? The same manager creating the disparity? The circularity of that logic is spectacular.
- Jamie4w ago
Tell them and you might detonate their morale, their relationship with the boss, and your own neck if it traces back. Noble until it's your job.
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