Necessary Roughness

BusinessWeek decries the recent Supreme Court decision that employees have six months to collect evidence and sue their employers for wage discrimination. Discussing each others’ salaries is still relatively taboo in the workplace, making difficult the collection of a significant sample.

A Chicago financial analyst recalls a former colleague who, convinced he was underpaid, spied over low cubicle walls to see co-workers’ computer screens around payday. Often he would extrapolate salaries based on an electronic pay stub or a 401(k) statement left up on a screen. A Boston area financial planner successfully gathered evidence for a gender discrimination case by staying in the office after hours and peering into open mail slots for sales commission notices. “You have to be sneaky,” she says.

The true “fair wage” isn’t the average wage of everyone you perceive to be doing the same kind of work. The true fair wage is the wage you will voluntarily work for and your employer will voluntarily pay for. Going after your employer in a discrimination suit may end up hurting your co-workers: if your employer cannot pay you the higher wage, the salaries of your co-workers could be dropped. Unless everyone in your cubicle is perceived he or she is being harmed by “the man,” this is likely to make your job experience worse, not better. It may also worsen the behavior between the races or the sexes, as fellow employees may see in your genetic code an incentive for you to be sneaking in their business.