Legal Question in Employment Law in California

Re: employer disclosing employee's wage w/o consent

No they cannot. Employee personnel information is confidential and may not be provided to a thrid party without your consent. However, if the company that received the information is one that you applied for employment with and used the former employer as a reference you have given impled consent.

Re: employer disclosing employee's wage w/o consent

I don't see why not, particularly since federal and state law require that every employer subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act must make, keep and preserve adequate payroll records of its employees, presumably to disclose to a third party in the event that a wage and hour claim is brought against that employer. You haven't given any facts here, but, assuming that there's no sort of confidentiality agreement delieneated between the employee and the employer regarding the disclosure of said employee's compensation level, I don't see how the employer can be precluded from discussing its own designated pay levels with others.