Jordan Boyle: employment lawyer on the House passing new pay transparency laws

Workers are now able to speak freely about their salaries, and it's got experts speculating about what this means for Kiwis.

The House passed a new law last night preventing employers from taking legal action against workers talking about their pay. 

The bill, introduced by Labour's Camilla Belich, essentially renders pay secrecy clauses unenforceable. 

Employment lawyer Jordan Boyle says New Zealand already has a culture of keeping pay private. 

"People may feel a little bit more freedom to ask, but you don't have to share. People may choose to share, employers may face some difficult conversations."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now you can officially tell anyone right now what you're
getting paid, because a new law passed last night that
ends the right of employers to place gag orders on
staff talking about their salaries. Jordan Boyle is an employment
lawyer at Diabeg Drayton Law and with us.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hey, Jordan, how you going arm?

Speaker 1 (00:14):
Well, thank you? So, if you've got the contract, the
clause in your contract that gags you, you can now
just ignore it.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Well to a certain extent the law prohibits. The new
law prohibits employers from taking adverse action that's defined in
the act, and essentially it's basically stopping you from being
promoted or afforded the same terms and conditions of other employees.
There are potentially actions that employers could take in terms

(00:40):
of breach of contract if they felt like they were
damaged by an employee disclosing their remuneration. That'll be something
interesting in terms of how case lor develops.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
What do you foresee them like, what would be the
reason for them being able to do that?

Speaker 2 (00:54):
Well, perhaps if an employee disclose that in bad faith,
maybe to a competitor or something to try and undermine
an employer's business, that could be something that an employer
might choose to take action against, but it sort of
prevents basically employees from having not having the same terms
conditions as other employees and their employment might have.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
Do you think employers have to brace themselves now for
a whole bunch of grumpy employees turning up because they've
been sharing their payover office strengths.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
I think the first question is will people actually change
their behavior in terms of disclosing their pay. Obviously some
employers had these clauses, but they're not particularly common. It's
not something I see a lot in my practice, and
I think we already have a bit of a culture
in terms of your pay is private for a lot
of people, and they don't necessarily disclose that to other employees. Now,

(01:46):
the people may feel a little bit more freedom to ask,
but you don't have to share. But people may choose
to share. And then, yeah, employers may face some difficult
conversations where they might have to justify their decisions as
to why someone's paid.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
But can they can they though Jordan? Because what if
you go to the boss and you go, well, Laura
is getting paid more than me, and I don't think
that's fair. Can the boss actually tell you why they're
paying Laura more or is that is there a privacy
privacy problem there?

Speaker 2 (02:15):
Well, I think it really comes down to why they're
paying Laura more than someone else, and they probably should
more focus on your performance and the reasons why you
are paid what you are paid.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
Which is a very bumming out conversation, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
Yeah, to an extent, it's sort of hard to say, well,
Laura is better at a job than you, or Laura
Laura smashes it. It's probably more to say, you know,
there's some areas you can improve if you want to
get paid, but there are obviously a range of factors.
You know, it can be performance, it can come down
to whether someone was you know, poach from a competitor,
and sometimes you just got to pay more when you

(02:51):
go to the market than what you might be paying
a current employee, for example.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
It'd be so gnarly Jordan, thanks very much, appreciate it,
Jordan Boyle, Employment lawyer Die berged great lord. I think
employers need this like a hole in the head. For
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