7 ms·

I got fired for sharing my salary on TikTok

35 points by ijidak 4y ago

witheld 4y ago
This is a pretty open and shut case right? No one can really say she was fired for anything but revealing her pay. A judge isn’t going to buy “we fired her for having a TikTok, which she could have used wrong“. Most of their employees probably do!
- PenguinCoder 4y ago
  Why does it matter what they or any employee was doing in personal time anyway? So what, they have social media presence. A claim by the company that the employee was fired for _having_ a TikTok is still over the line. It's not their goddamn business.
  - witheld 4y ago
    The difference is it legal to fire someone for using TikTok. It’s just not believable, which makes it clear that the firing was illegal (discussing wages is one of the few things you can’t be fired for).
    - willcipriano 4y ago
      I have heard about cases where uneven application of policy is seen as discrimination. I wonder if they now have to fire anyone else they learn has a TikTok account.
      - pessimizer 4y ago
        "At-will" means at will, unless you're being fired for being a member of a protected class. TikTok users are not a protected class. You can be fired for wearing ugly shoes, chewing too loud, or because it amused the boss on an overcast Thursday morning. edit: so maybe, I guess, to defend against the argument that they were fired for salary disclosure?
        willcipriano 4y ago
        > defend against the argument that they were fired for salary disclosure Exactly, if you fire the only black guy on the team for wearing a blue tie but other people wear them as well it could be argued you lied about the reason.
- justin-tm 4y ago
  It's bad optics (and I personally think the company can piss off), but I don't think they technically broke the letter of the law. Colorado doesn't have good faith exemptions to at-will so as long as it wasn't a protected class thing, I think they can do whatever they want, AFAICT *edit: I guess discussing wages is protected(?) (https://www.jacksonlewis.com/resources-publication/colorado-bans-employer-restrictions-individual-employees-right-discuss-their-salaries https://www.jacksonlewis.com/resources-publication/colorado-...) - but they didn't pick the reason, so I guess it boils down to how good lawyers are
  - witheld 4y ago
    Discussing wages is protected both by executive order and by federal law with the National Labor Relations Act https://jacksonspencerlaw.com/salary-discussions/ https://jacksonspencerlaw.com/salary-discussions/
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - michaelmrose 4y ago
    I'm not a lawyer but does at will mean anything in cases where you are dismissed for an illegal reason? Basically your company can fire you at any time but if they fire you because your black it doesn't matter if in theory they could have fired you because you wore red on Tuesday if in fact they actually fired for being black. If its protected to talk about your salary or wages and they fired her for doing so its illegal.
    - justin-tm 4y ago
      Yeah, there's breakdowns where events are tied close enough that they could be seen as de facto firing for race/salary, etc. Of course, this is all coming from a NYPost article, so I'm assuming it's leaving out some details.
71a54xd 4y ago
Why would you tell strangers a) your real identity b) where you work? This is why I think TikTok is moronic. That said, it's sort of insane that this is a legal reason to fire someone, insane that employers can still claim it's "illegal" to share your salary with co-workers etc.
- throwk8s 4y ago
  I'm not a lawyer, but the article points out that disclosing your salary is protected by law. > ...disclosing her salary is federally protected by law under the National Labor Relations Act
  - 71a54xd 4y ago
    Yeah, this was also my first thought. Granted, TikTok and Bytedance although they exist in the US are basically operated just like their 996 sweatshop brethren in China.
  - kcplate 4y ago
    It may be protected by law, but in my opinion, why the hell would you want anyone who doesn’t need to know your income, know your income if you can choose not to disclose it? To quote that great philosopher Shoresy: “So dumb”
    - bawolff 4y ago
      Generally having all your coworkers share salary puts you in a better negotiating position - so there is an obvious financial reason if its reciprocated. Also some people are vein and enjoy bragging.
      - kcplate 4y ago
        I see a different perspective. Unless all salaries are equal and capabilities and efforts of those receiving them are perceived to be equal, the only thing that salary disclosure really does is create morale issues within an organization. If you perceive that John Smith is weak and lazy, but know he makes 20k more than you, that creates discord within you. If you attempt to negotiate an increase based on that knowledge, you might find that your organization doesn’t have the same opinion of John Smith’s value to the organization than you do.
thih9 4y ago
> “I asked, ‘Have I broken any policies? Have I posted anything on TikTok that is a security concern?’ And they said not at this time I have not but it could happen at any time in the future, so they’re just not going to take that risk. This sounds absurd. How could a company punish an employee when the employee didn’t do anything wrong, just because they believe the employee might do something wrong? I’d love to hear an official response from that company.
- gruez 4y ago
  >How could a company punish an employee when the employee didn’t do anything wrong, just because they believe the employee might do something wrong? IANAL, but at-will employment means you can be fired for any reason (minus a narrow set of protected reasons). In this specific case it will not go well for the employer if it goes to court, since federal law protects employees disclosing their salary, but a company could conceivably have a policy of "you can't use tiktok".
  - thih9 4y ago
    > a company could conceivably have a policy of "you can't use tiktok". How does this apply here? In this case the employee has been informed that they haven’t broken any policies (“I asked, ‘Have I broken any policies? Have I posted anything on TikTok that is a security concern?’ And they said not at this time I have not”).
nerdawson 4y ago
> “I asked, ‘Have I broken any policies? Have I posted anything on TikTok that is a security concern?’ And they said not at this time I have not but it could happen at any time in the future, so they’re just not going to take that risk.” Utterly nonsensical. It could happen at any time in the future applies to every single person with access to any private information.
- nathanaldensr 4y ago
  Right. Let's just be honest: they came up with a plausibly-deniable excuse to fire her for doing exactly what she did.
  - ratg13 4y ago
    Sounds more like the company realized they messed up by not having an explicit social media policy for employees. She would have been fired for this sort of thing at most large companies without getting approval first. If they didn't have an explicit policy before hand though, then firing her over this was definitely a step too far.
    - toomuchtodo 4y ago
      Sharing your salary is protected by federal labor law, even if done over social media per the NLRB. She should file a complaint with the NLRB, her state labor board, and hire an employment attorney to seek recourse. It’s the only way companies learn; you must apply economic pain and consequences. https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/your-rights/your-rights-to-discuss-wages https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/your-right... https://www.seattletimes.com/explore/careers/can-you-get-fired-for-sharing-your-salary-publicly/ https://www.seattletimes.com/explore/careers/can-you-get-fir...
      - ratg13 4y ago
        Sharing your salary is protected, but if you go to any media outlet as an employee of company X, you are acting as a representative of that company. Typically the company will want to know and be involved if you are acting as their representative. Two different things going on here.
l1n 4y ago
Meta note: it's been disappointing seeing a bunch of NY Post articles on HN, not sure why this is particularly newsworthy and even if it was, it seems available elsewhere.
- Sentino 4y ago
  How does it matter if it's a news article relevant to hn audience or a blog article from somewhere else? Not everyone scans the internet every day
Kukumber 4y ago
One comment is spot on: "She didnt get fired for disclosing her salary. She got fired because her employer feels they can't risk her disclosure of other, more sensitive, information on the future. If her immediate reaction to any exiting news is to shout it out for all the world to hear, what will happen if they are working on a project that they dont want a competitor to know about, or if they get a classified govt contract, or a myriad of other situations I could envision a tech company needing/wanting security. They decided that the risk she posed wasn't worth it."
- plorntus 4y ago
  Fire if that happens then? You can’t preemptively fire someone for something they haven’t done nor even attempted/planned to do. Telling others your salary is allowed and should be encouraged, it is not a security concern at all nor does it imply you are going to release any actual confidential information.
  - spfzero 4y ago
    So this person has at the very least demonstrated that they will broadcast to the public details of their financial relationship with their employer. Not just to their friends, or their co-workers, but to their company's competitors and to their manager's co-workers.
    - plorntus 4y ago
      As far as I am aware though (and it depends on their contract/rules etc of course) that is completely fine and allowed? Salaries are only secret if the person receiving it wants it to be. People should be able to say how much they earn without retribution. There is literally nothing wrong with it and it doesn't mean that they are going to broadcast actual company secrets. If its a big deal for the employer then they should have put it in their contract/NDA and made that clear prior to employing them (but as I understand it that is illegal in a lot of places for good reason).
    - kanbara 4y ago
yakak 4y ago
What company was this? If we are going to be fickle about at will employment, I would not like to take the financial risk of working for them.
Volundr 4y ago
> She shared that she was nervous about disclosing too much information because she had to sign “a bunch” of documents upon her dismissal You do not have to and almost certainly should not sign any paperwork when being fired, laid off, or even leaving voluntarily. The exception here is the company may offer you a severance package to sign some paperwork waiving your right to sue. Even then if you can afford it it's a good idea to run it through a lawyer first. But signing stuff for free? Don't do it, you have nothing to gain.
- hotpotamus 4y ago
  Last time I was laid off, I got $90K to keep my mouth shut. And you know what I did? I shut the hell up, and I'm not even all that thrilled to post about it anonymously here. It was all fairly amiable as well.
  - Volundr 4y ago
    Yep, that's exactly what I mean. Paid to sign, sure thing, probably want to run it by a lawyer first to make sure the terms aren't too crazy and your getting a good deal, but for free? Forget it, nothing they are going to ask you to sign will help you, only them. Even when being fired for cause severance is sometimes possible. All depends on how much they want those papers signed.
    - hotpotamus 4y ago
      Yeah, it was pretty clear that they were paying you a decent chunk to not cause any trouble; I didn't need a lawyer to tell me that, but I agree that couldn't hurt as long as they aren't exorbitant. Honestly, it's my best piece of advice for any company that has to get rid of someone - money makes it better, and it's one thing that company did fairly well. I had a problematic co-worker who got fired in one spectacular event (like you see in movies) after getting into a dick measuring contest with a director or VP (forget his exact title at the time) after causing a serious outage. As far as I know he got a decent check out of the thing even though he absolutely deserved to be let go.

35 points by ijidak 4y ago

This is a pretty open and shut case right? No one can really say she was fired for anything but revealing her pay. A judge isn’t going to buy “we fired her for having a TikTok, which she could have used wrong“. Most of their employees probably do!

PenguinCoder 4y ago
Why does it matter what they or any employee was doing in personal time anyway? So what, they have social media presence. A claim by the company that the employee was fired for _having_ a TikTok is still over the line. It's not their goddamn business.
- witheld 4y ago
  The difference is it legal to fire someone for using TikTok. It’s just not believable, which makes it clear that the firing was illegal (discussing wages is one of the few things you can’t be fired for).
  - willcipriano 4y ago
    I have heard about cases where uneven application of policy is seen as discrimination. I wonder if they now have to fire anyone else they learn has a TikTok account.
    - pessimizer 4y ago
      "At-will" means at will, unless you're being fired for being a member of a protected class. TikTok users are not a protected class. You can be fired for wearing ugly shoes, chewing too loud, or because it amused the boss on an overcast Thursday morning. edit: so maybe, I guess, to defend against the argument that they were fired for salary disclosure?
      - willcipriano 4y ago
        > defend against the argument that they were fired for salary disclosure Exactly, if you fire the only black guy on the team for wearing a blue tie but other people wear them as well it could be argued you lied about the reason.
justin-tm 4y ago
It's bad optics (and I personally think the company can piss off), but I don't think they technically broke the letter of the law. Colorado doesn't have good faith exemptions to at-will so as long as it wasn't a protected class thing, I think they can do whatever they want, AFAICT *edit: I guess discussing wages is protected(?) (https://www.jacksonlewis.com/resources-publication/colorado-bans-employer-restrictions-individual-employees-right-discuss-their-salaries https://www.jacksonlewis.com/resources-publication/colorado-...) - but they didn't pick the reason, so I guess it boils down to how good lawyers are
- witheld 4y ago
  Discussing wages is protected both by executive order and by federal law with the National Labor Relations Act https://jacksonspencerlaw.com/salary-discussions/ https://jacksonspencerlaw.com/salary-discussions/
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- michaelmrose 4y ago
  I'm not a lawyer but does at will mean anything in cases where you are dismissed for an illegal reason? Basically your company can fire you at any time but if they fire you because your black it doesn't matter if in theory they could have fired you because you wore red on Tuesday if in fact they actually fired for being black. If its protected to talk about your salary or wages and they fired her for doing so its illegal.
  - justin-tm 4y ago
    Yeah, there's breakdowns where events are tied close enough that they could be seen as de facto firing for race/salary, etc. Of course, this is all coming from a NYPost article, so I'm assuming it's leaving out some details.

71a54xd 4y ago

Why would you tell strangers a) your real identity b) where you work? This is why I think TikTok is moronic. That said, it's sort of insane that this is a legal reason to fire someone, insane that employers can still claim it's "illegal" to share your salary with co-workers etc.

throwk8s 4y ago
I'm not a lawyer, but the article points out that disclosing your salary is protected by law. > ...disclosing her salary is federally protected by law under the National Labor Relations Act
- 71a54xd 4y ago
  Yeah, this was also my first thought. Granted, TikTok and Bytedance although they exist in the US are basically operated just like their 996 sweatshop brethren in China.
- kcplate 4y ago
  It may be protected by law, but in my opinion, why the hell would you want anyone who doesn’t need to know your income, know your income if you can choose not to disclose it? To quote that great philosopher Shoresy: “So dumb”
  - bawolff 4y ago
    Generally having all your coworkers share salary puts you in a better negotiating position - so there is an obvious financial reason if its reciprocated. Also some people are vein and enjoy bragging.
    - kcplate 4y ago
      I see a different perspective. Unless all salaries are equal and capabilities and efforts of those receiving them are perceived to be equal, the only thing that salary disclosure really does is create morale issues within an organization. If you perceive that John Smith is weak and lazy, but know he makes 20k more than you, that creates discord within you. If you attempt to negotiate an increase based on that knowledge, you might find that your organization doesn’t have the same opinion of John Smith’s value to the organization than you do.

thih9 4y ago

> “I asked, ‘Have I broken any policies? Have I posted anything on TikTok that is a security concern?’ And they said not at this time I have not but it could happen at any time in the future, so they’re just not going to take that risk. This sounds absurd. How could a company punish an employee when the employee didn’t do anything wrong, just because they believe the employee might do something wrong? I’d love to hear an official response from that company.

gruez 4y ago
>How could a company punish an employee when the employee didn’t do anything wrong, just because they believe the employee might do something wrong? IANAL, but at-will employment means you can be fired for any reason (minus a narrow set of protected reasons). In this specific case it will not go well for the employer if it goes to court, since federal law protects employees disclosing their salary, but a company could conceivably have a policy of "you can't use tiktok".
- thih9 4y ago
  > a company could conceivably have a policy of "you can't use tiktok". How does this apply here? In this case the employee has been informed that they haven’t broken any policies (“I asked, ‘Have I broken any policies? Have I posted anything on TikTok that is a security concern?’ And they said not at this time I have not”).

nerdawson 4y ago

> “I asked, ‘Have I broken any policies? Have I posted anything on TikTok that is a security concern?’ And they said not at this time I have not but it could happen at any time in the future, so they’re just not going to take that risk.” Utterly nonsensical. It could happen at any time in the future applies to every single person with access to any private information.

nathanaldensr 4y ago
Right. Let's just be honest: they came up with a plausibly-deniable excuse to fire her for doing exactly what she did.
- ratg13 4y ago
  Sounds more like the company realized they messed up by not having an explicit social media policy for employees. She would have been fired for this sort of thing at most large companies without getting approval first. If they didn't have an explicit policy before hand though, then firing her over this was definitely a step too far.
  - toomuchtodo 4y ago
    Sharing your salary is protected by federal labor law, even if done over social media per the NLRB. She should file a complaint with the NLRB, her state labor board, and hire an employment attorney to seek recourse. It’s the only way companies learn; you must apply economic pain and consequences. https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/your-rights/your-rights-to-discuss-wages https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/your-right... https://www.seattletimes.com/explore/careers/can-you-get-fired-for-sharing-your-salary-publicly/ https://www.seattletimes.com/explore/careers/can-you-get-fir...
    - ratg13 4y ago
      Sharing your salary is protected, but if you go to any media outlet as an employee of company X, you are acting as a representative of that company. Typically the company will want to know and be involved if you are acting as their representative. Two different things going on here.

l1n 4y ago

Meta note: it's been disappointing seeing a bunch of NY Post articles on HN, not sure why this is particularly newsworthy and even if it was, it seems available elsewhere.

Sentino 4y ago
How does it matter if it's a news article relevant to hn audience or a blog article from somewhere else? Not everyone scans the internet every day

Kukumber 4y ago

One comment is spot on: "She didnt get fired for disclosing her salary. She got fired because her employer feels they can't risk her disclosure of other, more sensitive, information on the future. If her immediate reaction to any exiting news is to shout it out for all the world to hear, what will happen if they are working on a project that they dont want a competitor to know about, or if they get a classified govt contract, or a myriad of other situations I could envision a tech company needing/wanting security. They decided that the risk she posed wasn't worth it."

plorntus 4y ago
Fire if that happens then? You can’t preemptively fire someone for something they haven’t done nor even attempted/planned to do. Telling others your salary is allowed and should be encouraged, it is not a security concern at all nor does it imply you are going to release any actual confidential information.
- spfzero 4y ago
  So this person has at the very least demonstrated that they will broadcast to the public details of their financial relationship with their employer. Not just to their friends, or their co-workers, but to their company's competitors and to their manager's co-workers.
  - plorntus 4y ago
    As far as I am aware though (and it depends on their contract/rules etc of course) that is completely fine and allowed? Salaries are only secret if the person receiving it wants it to be. People should be able to say how much they earn without retribution. There is literally nothing wrong with it and it doesn't mean that they are going to broadcast actual company secrets. If its a big deal for the employer then they should have put it in their contract/NDA and made that clear prior to employing them (but as I understand it that is illegal in a lot of places for good reason).
  - kanbara 4y ago

yakak 4y ago

What company was this? If we are going to be fickle about at will employment, I would not like to take the financial risk of working for them.

Volundr 4y ago

> She shared that she was nervous about disclosing too much information because she had to sign “a bunch” of documents upon her dismissal You do not have to and almost certainly should not sign any paperwork when being fired, laid off, or even leaving voluntarily. The exception here is the company may offer you a severance package to sign some paperwork waiving your right to sue. Even then if you can afford it it's a good idea to run it through a lawyer first. But signing stuff for free? Don't do it, you have nothing to gain.

hotpotamus 4y ago
Last time I was laid off, I got $90K to keep my mouth shut. And you know what I did? I shut the hell up, and I'm not even all that thrilled to post about it anonymously here. It was all fairly amiable as well.
- Volundr 4y ago
  Yep, that's exactly what I mean. Paid to sign, sure thing, probably want to run it by a lawyer first to make sure the terms aren't too crazy and your getting a good deal, but for free? Forget it, nothing they are going to ask you to sign will help you, only them. Even when being fired for cause severance is sometimes possible. All depends on how much they want those papers signed.
  - hotpotamus 4y ago
    Yeah, it was pretty clear that they were paying you a decent chunk to not cause any trouble; I didn't need a lawyer to tell me that, but I agree that couldn't hurt as long as they aren't exorbitant. Honestly, it's my best piece of advice for any company that has to get rid of someone - money makes it better, and it's one thing that company did fairly well. I had a problematic co-worker who got fired in one spectacular event (like you see in movies) after getting into a dick measuring contest with a director or VP (forget his exact title at the time) after causing a serious outage. As far as I know he got a decent check out of the thing even though he absolutely deserved to be let go.