🗞️ Fired for Talking Pay: An Illinois Car Dealership Learns the Hard Way That Wage Conversations Are Off-Limits to Employers

When Ryan Edward Gannon spent between 20 and 30 minutes explaining Liberty Auto City's commission and bonus structure to a newly hired colleague on September 25, 2023, he was doing something federal law has long protected. What followed cost him his job.

Sales Manager Patrick O'Donnell confronted Gannon the following day, telling him he was not permitted to discuss pay with other employees and threatening to strip his salary or fire him if he did so again. Gannon immediately reported the threat to human resources, where the encounter was documented in writing. HR Director Pam Burke confirmed to Gannon that the conversation was legally protected, and General Manager Tony Anzelmo was informed two days later, on September 28. Despite internal acknowledgment that O'Donnell had made what Burke's own notes described as unlawful threats, the only consequence for the manager was a private conversation with Anzelmo. No written discipline was issued and no formal record of any corrective action was produced at trial.

Three weeks later, Gannon was fired. The stated reason was his failure to adequately inspect a vehicle during a dealer trade on October 16, his first time performing such a task, undertaken without formal training and with only basic verbal instructions. When a customer discovered cosmetic flaws on the vehicle that evening, Anzelmo, who was not present at the dealership, received a brief phone call from a manager and ordered Gannon terminated. He did not view the car, did not speak with Gannon, and acknowledged under oath that he had no idea what repairs might cost at the time he made the decision.

Administrative Law Judge Lisa Friedheim-Weis, writing in a decision dated May 8, 2026, found both the threat and the discharge to be violations of Section 8(a)(1) of the National Labor Relations Act.

Why It Matters

The right to discuss wages with coworkers is among the most clearly established protections in American labor law. Under Section 7 of the NLRA, employees in the private sector, union and non-union alike, are entitled to engage in "concerted activities" for "mutual aid or protection," a category the NLRB has long held includes conversations about pay, bonuses, and other compensation. Employer policies or threats designed to suppress such discussions are unlawful on their face.

The Liberty Auto City case illustrates a pattern the NLRB encounters regularly: a manager issues a threat, human resources documents it internally, leadership acknowledges the problem in private, and the employee is subsequently let go under a seemingly unrelated rationale. Judge Friedheim-Weis applied the burden-shifting framework established in Wright Line, 251 NLRB 1083 (1980), which requires the General Counsel to show that protected activity was a motivating factor in the discharge, after which the burden shifts to the employer to demonstrate it would have taken the same action regardless of that protected activity.

The employer did not meet that burden. The judge cited several factors pointing to pretext: Gannon was terminated without any investigation; Anzelmo did not know the cost of repairs when he issued the firing order by phone; no other salesperson in Anzelmo's four-year tenure as general manager had ever been terminated for failing to inspect a vehicle; and two other salespeople who caused actual physical damage to company vehicles in June and November 2023, the latter just one month after Gannon's discharge, were placed on $2,000 deductible repayment plans rather than dismissed. Gannon, by contrast, was fired summarily for failing to notice pre-existing cosmetic defects on a car he had been sent to retrieve, without being offered the option to cover any repair costs.

Key Points

• Gannon discussed the dealership's pay and bonus structure with a newly hired salesperson on September 25, 2023, an act the NLRB classifies as inherently concerted protected activity under Section 7 of the NLRA.
• Sales Manager O'Donnell threatened Gannon the following day, telling him that discussing pay could cost him his salary or his job, a statement HR Director Burke documented in writing and characterized as unlawful.
• General Manager Anzelmo was informed of the incident on September 28, spoke privately with O'Donnell, but issued no formal discipline, and no record of any corrective action was presented at trial.
• Gannon was terminated on October 16, 2023, approximately three weeks after his protected wage discussion, ostensibly for failing to adequately inspect a vehicle during his first-ever dealer trade, for which he had received no formal training.
• Anzelmo ordered the termination by phone, without having seen the vehicle, knowing the cost of any repairs, or speaking directly with Gannon.
• Two other salespeople who caused physical damage to company vehicles in the same calendar year received $2,000 deductible repayment plans rather than termination, a disparity Judge Friedheim-Weis found significant.
• Judge Friedheim-Weis found the vehicle inspection rationale pretextual under the Wright Line standard and concluded the discharge was unlawfully motivated by Gannon's protected concerted activity.
• Liberty Auto City was ordered to reinstate Gannon to his former position or a substantially equivalent one, pay full backpay with interest, compensate him for other foreseeable financial losses resulting from the discharge, remove the termination from his personnel file, and post notices at its Libertyville, Illinois, facility affirming employees' rights to discuss wages.

Primary Source Author: Administrative Law Judge Lisa Friedheim-Weis, U.S. National Labor Relations Board

Primary Source: Liberty Auto City, Inc., JD-30-26, Case 13-CA-330556 (NLRB Div. of Judges, May 8, 2026)

Primary Source Link: www.nlrb.gov/case/13-CA-330556

Supplemental References

• NLRB: Your Rights Under the National Labor Relations Act
• U.S. Department of Labor: Asking About, Discussing, or Disclosing Pay
• Wright Line, 662 F.2d 899 (1st Cir. 1981) via Justia
• Duane Morris: NLRB Decision Clarifies Wright Line Burden in Mixed-Motive Cases
• NLRB Edge: Still Illegal to Fire Workers for Discussing Wages (Dec. 2024)
• GovDocs: Can Employees Discuss Pay and Salaries?