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It would be rather pointless to protect workers' rights to organize without protecting their rights to discuss their compensation.

It looks like preventing employees from discussing compensation amongst themselves has been historically seen as a transparent attempt to prevent unions from forming, which is illegal.

1. https://www.govdocs.com/can-employees-discuss-pay-salaries/

It is also related to laws impacting commerce.

The rights in section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act are vague, but they are easy to interpret as more expansive than that.

Telling employees they can't discuss pay pretty much directly leads to them not being able to assist each other in getting better terms of employment.

There's also a difference between directing employees to not discuss certain matters during work hours and stating that they can't discuss their pay with other people...

It does lay out the grounds for restricting employees from discussing pay and had been enforced that way. It is worded in a way that has a much larger impact that just unions.