3 ms·

Are you comfortable with your employer having the power to control what you say, in your free time, and not about said employer? Because that's what this boils

Are you comfortable with your employer having the power to control what you say, in your free time, and not about said employer? Because that's what this boils down to. I would expect people who are skeptical about the great power that large corporations hold to oppose that kind of behavior.

kaonashi 11y ago
I'm comfortable that my employer can terminate my employment should I alienate the people I work with to the point I can no longer carry out my job.
- 13thLetter 11y ago
  I hope for your sake that the political winds never blow a little differently, then.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - stevebmark 11y ago
    An employer can already fire you for saying something in your free time. An employer can fire you for ANY reason, ANY, that doesn't violate civil rights. This is well known and no one is fighting for any laws to change this. This lawsuit is about harassment, not free speech, and celebrating (legal) "harassment" on the grounds of "free speech" is again, flawed reasoning.
    - 13thLetter 11y ago
      "An employer can already fire you for saying something in your free time. An employer can fire you for ANY reason, ANY, that doesn't violate civil rights. This is well known and no one is fighting for any laws to change this." Literally five replies ago in this very same comment chain, I stated that it was indeed completely legal for employers to behave in this fashion, and should continue to be so; I merely pointed out that it was not right. "This lawsuit is about harassment, not free speech, and celebrating (legal) "harassment" on the grounds of "free speech" is again, flawed reasoning." But this comment chain very definitely is about employers firing people for exercising their free speech, on their own time, not related to their employer. I don't think they should do that. What do you think?
      - stevebmark 11y ago
        I think you need to keep going with that train of thought. Is it morally right that an employer can fire someone they don't like? If it doesn't violate civil rights, it's 100% fine to me. What's the alternative? Should an employer NOT be allowed to fire someone they don't like? That sounds like very bad constraints on the employer. Should there be some protection system against specific reasons for terminating employees? It's not possible from a legal perspective, because you'd have to implement a law to protect every possible reason an employer would want to fire someone, all of which would trample the rights of the employer. Any employer is as free to fire someone for hate speech as the person is for supplying hate speech. It doesn't mean that either are free of consequences. The employer controls the company. If keeping someone on board who has opposing views will lead to a worse company and more suffering, it would make moral sense to fire them.
        13thLetter 11y ago
        Hopefully we've moved past the strawman of trying to make such political discrimination illegal. That being said... You need to consider the long-term consequences of being comfortable with such behavior on the part of employers. If it's considered admirable to fire people with political views the employer does not approve of, as it is now, that simply makes the country's political divisions ever more extreme. If you work for Google you have to be a Democrat, if you work for McDonnell Douglas you have to be a Republican. Soon enough you won't be able to live in certain places if you have certain political opinions, because you won't be able to find anything more than menial employment. At best, we have two angry and completely distinct political sides, with absolutely no understanding of the other or willingness to compromise, staring at each other over state borders and fighting dirty for every nationwide policy. At worst... well, there's no limit to the "worst" part. Now, consider the alternative philosophy: employers explicitly do not care about their employees' behavior on their private time as long as it doesn't involve the employer. Not only do we avoid political segregation, but under this scenario, you can hold whatever opinions you want, and you can get into endless meaningless flamewars with the other side on social media without worrying about retribution. I really have trouble understanding why anyone wouldn't prefer this to constantly having to look over your shoulder, wondering what your employer might think of your opinions.

kaonashi 11y ago

I'm comfortable that my employer can terminate my employment should I alienate the people I work with to the point I can no longer carry out my job.

13thLetter 11y ago
I hope for your sake that the political winds never blow a little differently, then.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- stevebmark 11y ago
  An employer can already fire you for saying something in your free time. An employer can fire you for ANY reason, ANY, that doesn't violate civil rights. This is well known and no one is fighting for any laws to change this. This lawsuit is about harassment, not free speech, and celebrating (legal) "harassment" on the grounds of "free speech" is again, flawed reasoning.
  - 13thLetter 11y ago
    "An employer can already fire you for saying something in your free time. An employer can fire you for ANY reason, ANY, that doesn't violate civil rights. This is well known and no one is fighting for any laws to change this." Literally five replies ago in this very same comment chain, I stated that it was indeed completely legal for employers to behave in this fashion, and should continue to be so; I merely pointed out that it was not right. "This lawsuit is about harassment, not free speech, and celebrating (legal) "harassment" on the grounds of "free speech" is again, flawed reasoning." But this comment chain very definitely is about employers firing people for exercising their free speech, on their own time, not related to their employer. I don't think they should do that. What do you think?
    - stevebmark 11y ago
      I think you need to keep going with that train of thought. Is it morally right that an employer can fire someone they don't like? If it doesn't violate civil rights, it's 100% fine to me. What's the alternative? Should an employer NOT be allowed to fire someone they don't like? That sounds like very bad constraints on the employer. Should there be some protection system against specific reasons for terminating employees? It's not possible from a legal perspective, because you'd have to implement a law to protect every possible reason an employer would want to fire someone, all of which would trample the rights of the employer. Any employer is as free to fire someone for hate speech as the person is for supplying hate speech. It doesn't mean that either are free of consequences. The employer controls the company. If keeping someone on board who has opposing views will lead to a worse company and more suffering, it would make moral sense to fire them.
      - 13thLetter 11y ago
        Hopefully we've moved past the strawman of trying to make such political discrimination illegal. That being said... You need to consider the long-term consequences of being comfortable with such behavior on the part of employers. If it's considered admirable to fire people with political views the employer does not approve of, as it is now, that simply makes the country's political divisions ever more extreme. If you work for Google you have to be a Democrat, if you work for McDonnell Douglas you have to be a Republican. Soon enough you won't be able to live in certain places if you have certain political opinions, because you won't be able to find anything more than menial employment. At best, we have two angry and completely distinct political sides, with absolutely no understanding of the other or willingness to compromise, staring at each other over state borders and fighting dirty for every nationwide policy. At worst... well, there's no limit to the "worst" part. Now, consider the alternative philosophy: employers explicitly do not care about their employees' behavior on their private time as long as it doesn't involve the employer. Not only do we avoid political segregation, but under this scenario, you can hold whatever opinions you want, and you can get into endless meaningless flamewars with the other side on social media without worrying about retribution. I really have trouble understanding why anyone wouldn't prefer this to constantly having to look over your shoulder, wondering what your employer might think of your opinions.