@amic This is common in non-union organizations (including certain #USGovt agencies) ... management fears that people discussing their pay will cause dissatisfaction and ultimately unionization.

The sad thing about it is that if management is fair and transparent about pay scales, most people are reasonable about what they're getting.

(In $EMPLOYER, I used to use a newspaper's site to check the official pay of various people I work with. Turns out government employees' pay is generally public information. So trying to keep pay secret didn't work anyway.)