"Your right to discuss your salary information with your coworkers is protected by the federal government. The National Labor Relations Act states that employers can't ban the discussion of salary and working conditions among employees."
Edit: Just saw that response and while I agree that you can be fired for any reason...that could be for anything at all. The only reason most companies are going to fire you is if:
a) You aren't doing the job you were hired to do
b) You are creating a negative work environment. Actively trying to discuss salaries publicly at the company could definitely do that, depending on the type of and size of the company. Creating resentment definitely can cause problems but it's all situational. The situation that you saw first hand could have been as simple as you describe it or there could have been other contributing factors that you aren't aware of.
Being fired on a hair trigger for something like that seems extremely unlikely. Businesses don't go through the hiring, interview, background check and training only to fire somebody because they went against a rule in the book. Companies hire people for to do jobs because they need them to do that job and they value that performance.
> A lot of illegal things happen all the time (wage theft, salary collusion, 1099 exploitation). Worker protections in the US have no teeth.
There's probably some lack of teeth issues, but I think the biggest issue is that people are just culturally conditioned not to take advantage of the protections that exist.
"Your right to discuss your salary information with your coworkers is protected by the federal government. The National Labor Relations Act states that employers can't ban the discussion of salary and working conditions among employees."
http://work.chron.com/can-tell-coworkers-salary-7204.html
Edit: Just saw that response and while I agree that you can be fired for any reason...that could be for anything at all. The only reason most companies are going to fire you is if:
a) You aren't doing the job you were hired to do b) You are creating a negative work environment. Actively trying to discuss salaries publicly at the company could definitely do that, depending on the type of and size of the company. Creating resentment definitely can cause problems but it's all situational. The situation that you saw first hand could have been as simple as you describe it or there could have been other contributing factors that you aren't aware of.
Being fired on a hair trigger for something like that seems extremely unlikely. Businesses don't go through the hiring, interview, background check and training only to fire somebody because they went against a rule in the book. Companies hire people for to do jobs because they need them to do that job and they value that performance.