A Texas engineering firm last week agreed to pay more than $100,000 in lost wages and benefits to an employee it unlawfully fired for discussing salary information with her co-workers, according to the National Labor Relations Board.

Houston-based Jones & Carter Inc. allegedly fired Lynda Teare, a former training coordinator, in January 2011 for violating a company policy forbidding employees to discuss their salaries with one another. Ms. Teare filed a complaint with the NLRB three months later, claiming that the discussions she had with her co-workers qualified as protected conduct under the National Labor Relations Act.

On Feb. 15, the board announced that Jones & Carter had agreed to pay Ms. Teare $107,000 in lost wages, 401(k) contributions and medical expenses plus interest. Ms. Teare also was offered her former position at Jones & Carter but declined to rejoin the company, the NLRB said in a statement.

According to court documents, Jones & Carter executives testified during an administrative hearing that Ms. Teare had been fired for “harassing” other employees about their salaries, and not merely discussing them. An administrative law judge ruled in Ms. Teare's favor on Nov. 26, 2012, declaring that the company's policy regarding salary discussions among employees constituted an unfair labor practice under federal law.

In her Nov. 26 decision, Administrative Law Judge Margaret Brakebusch noted that company executives not only failed to provide any evidence corroborating the alleged harassment, but offered conflicting testimony in a prior hearing before state unemployment regulators citing salary discussions among employees as a “pet peeve” of the company's and a violation of its conduct policies.

“The varying and shifting reasons advanced by (the company) significantly undermine its attempts to depict its discharge of Teare as based on anything other than her protected activity,” Judge Brakebusch wrote.

The labor relations board affirmed the judge's decision on Feb. 8, 2013, and ordered Jones & Carter to reinstate Ms. Teare, compensate her for lost wages and benefits, delete the offending rule from its employee handbook, and notify its employees of the judge's ruling.