UK Rights Watchdog Wants Bosses Forced to Reveal Colleague Salaries

The UK's equality watchdog has floated a rule that would make office whispers unnecessary: employees should be legally entitled to know what their colleagues are paid, and bosses should be obliged to tell them. The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) proposed that employers must respond to questionnaires about co-workers' pay within a set timeframe. The information would cover basic pay and hours worked, bonuses, overtime, shift premiums and performance-related pay, plus how staff salaries compare with one another, according to BBC News.

Right now, UK employers have no duty to answer those requests. They can also ask job candidates what they currently earn — though applicants are free to refuse. The EHRC wants that question outlawed in hiring, arguing it lets old pay gaps follow workers from job to job.

John Kirkpatrick, the EHRC's chief executive, told the BBC that salary-history questions can bake past disadvantage straight into a new pay packet. When employers ask, he said, it tends to lock a history of disadvantage or discrimination into future salaries. A company should still be free to offer a competitive wage, he added, but that shouldn't create a pattern that discriminates.

The Fawcett Society, which campaigns for women and gender equality, has made the same argument before. The charity warned that asking about salary history risks preserving unfair pay gaps tied to gender, race and disability. In its view, the practice rewards a candidate's perceived worth and haggling ability instead of their skills, experience and performance.

The EHRC has previously said women would also gain if employers published salary details directly in job adverts. Now it is pressing lawmakers to make the new disclosure duties compulsory, a move that would hand UK workers a tool they currently don't have: a straight answer about what the desk next to them is worth.