"I earn 50,000 euros a month": May I tell you how much salary I get?
Created: 06/23/2022, 09:27
By: Juliane Gutmann
The question of salary is one of the most important in working life for most employees.
© IMAGO
Does your employment contract state that you are not allowed to talk about your salary?
An inadmissible clause, as legal experts inform.
But there are exceptions.
Knowing your colleagues' salaries has advantages.
For example, you can better assess whether you are overpaid or underpaid.
In addition, the employee can monitor the employer to ensure that it treats the workforce fairly.
Keyword principle of equal treatment.
This principle of
equal treatment
under labor law applies to employers based in Germany and is intended to ensure that companies, when taking favorable measures towards employees, are not allowed to treat individual employees worse than other comparable employees for arbitrary reasons.
The law firm Hensche, specialist law firm for labor law, provides information about this.
The principle of equal treatment also invalidates clauses in the employment contract that say that you are not allowed to talk to others about your salary.
However, there are exceptions
.
Salary survey
Would you like more tips on the subject of jobs and careers?
Then follow our news pages on the Xing and LinkedIn career portals.
Termination of the employment contract: the most important facts that everyone should know
View photo gallery
Talk about salary and promote equality
"I earn 50,000 euros a month": Such or similar public statements can cause problems.
As the mirror informs,
some employees are actually subject to confidentiality when it comes to their wages
.
According to Spiegel, a "ban on speaking" contained in the employment contract is permissible if the company's competitiveness would otherwise be jeopardized because the salary is a very important competitive factor for the employer.
However, this case is the exception. The majority of employees are therefore allowed to talk about their own salary without fearing the consequences.
Many employment law experts even see this as an advantage.
After all, anyone who knows about the salary of others and reveals it themselves
promotes equality for everyone in the company
, including that between men and women.
(jg)