In Illinois, 2019 was a busy year for employment attorneys with several new employment-related laws going into effect, as well as amendments to old laws. With so much important information, Cramer Law will continue to put out new content through 2020 in our ongoing blog series.
Today, we want to follow up on our post about amendments to the Illinois Equal Pay Act where we discussed new prohibitions for employers. Specifically, employers are no longer allowed to request salary or wage history from potential applicants. Among other no-no’s, employers may no longer ask for or require a wage or salary history under a variety of conditions:
- as a condition of being considered for employment;
- as a condition of being interviewed;
- as a condition of continuing to be considered for an offer of employment; or
- as a condition of an offer of employment or an offer of compensation.
But what about employees? Can they discuss wage or salary history?
The amended Illinois Equal Pay Act, which went into effect September 29, 2019, prohibits employers from retaliating against employees who discuss wages, salary or benefits with co-workers. Further, it is also illegal for employers to require employees to sign a contract or waiver prohibiting them from discussing compensation with other employees.
The amended law, Illinois Equal Pay Act has now made it clear – employees have a right to discuss salary and benefits with each other and retaliation will not be tolerated in Illinois.
