An extremely excited tech worker didn’t hesitate to take to social media to celebrate after receiving some very good news. Sadly, her celebratory TikTok video resulted in a very costly lesson as it raised questions for her employer. While some agree that the clip was “taboo,” others don’t think the young woman did anything wrong.
Lexi Larson, a Colorado tech worker, was extremely excited to receive a $20,000 salary increase. Going from $70,000 to $90,000 was a reason to celebrate. So, in her excitement, Larson enthusiastically took to TikTok to share the good news, even going so far as to point out how much her paychecks had increased with the salary boost. Sadly, the footage resulted in a costly lesson.
After Lexi’s employer became aware of her TikTok videos and the salary information she had shared, they weren’t happy, to say the least. In fact, the Colorado tech worker went from receiving a raise to being let go as her employer fired her from her job for publicly sharing her pay increase.
@itslexilarson How much my paychecks increased when I went from $70k to $90k per year #paycheckbreakdown #salarytransparency #paytransparency
“So, TikTok got me fired,” Lexi Larson admitted in a subsequent video. “My employer found my TikToks and really, really did not like that I was sharing my salary and stuff like that,” she continued. “They said my social media posts made them question my judgment as an employee,” Lexi furthered.
Although some think the termination was justified and believe the young woman should not have overshared private information with strangers, others strongly disagree. While no one can fault the young woman for being happy about receiving a raise, discussing salary where your coworkers and colleagues could hear or see it has long been taboo. However, times are changing as a reporter for Inside Edition pointed out.
@itslexilarson Lol
“Revealing your salary used to be a big taboo, something you never, ever talked about with your colleagues, but now a younger generation is saying they have no problem laying it all out there,” the reporter said, and she’s not wrong. In fact, it’s a recent trend that’s been called “salary transparency,” where “people share how much they make at a job in hopes of empowering people to get paid what they deserve,” Inside Edition explained.
While some argue that sharing salary information in a public forum only amounts to “flexing” for “clout,” some experts say salary transparency is a good thing. “We should be talking about what we’re getting paid because we want to make sure there is transparency. That can help to eliminate or reduce bias and that can help close the wage gaps we’re seeing based on gender and race,” CNBC correspondent Sharon Epperson said.
As always, however, there are two sides to the debate. Yes, salary transparency may expose unfair disparities in pay among employees, but it can also lead to conflict amongst colleagues. In addition, it may tie an employer’s hands when it comes to issuing pay increases and may actually do the exact opposite of its intended purpose, causing some employers to withhold raises out of fear that they may be accused of discrimination for not giving everyone the same pay rate. And, if we’re being honest, some employees are simply worth more to a company than others.
For example, an employer may have a bachelor’s prepared employee that has proven more valuable than a master’s prepared employee. I’ve seen this myself in my nursing career, where further education doesn’t necessarily translate to a more valuable employee in the field. While the employee with a lesser degree might be more deserving of the raise, the employer may decide against it because they know the employee with a master’s degree will demand more if they find out about it. Regardless of our opinion, however, the law is clear.
According to The Law Firm of John P. Mahoney Esq., Attorneys at Law, you cannot be fired for discussing wages at work, thanks to federal protection that many people do not know about. The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), established in 1935, “made it illegal for an employer to fire an employee just for talking about wages at work. In 2014, President Obama signed an executive order – Non-Retaliation for Disclosure of Compensation Information – that helped further cement the NLRA’s power and importance. Due to these federal employment laws, you can converse with coworkers about how much each of you makes in a given pay period.”
With NLRA having been around for decades, why do so many people believe they can be terminated or penalized for talking about their salary among colleagues? We can only guess, but it does seem possible that employers and companies may intentionally propagate this rumor in hopes of keeping their workers quiet in an attempt to save money by paying some employees less than they are actually worth for the same work. Was that the case here or were Lexi Larson’s TikTok videos a legitimate reason to question her judgment? You decide.
