5 ms·
Companies can simply have a straight-edged policy of no politics -- from religion to economics, it's all off-topic and out-of-bounds.
by ihsw2 9y ago
Companies can simply have a straight-edged policy of no politics -- from religion to economics, it's all off-topic and out-of-bounds.
- oneeyedpigeon 9y agoIf you ran a traditional company, and were interviewing a candidate who wanted to bring about the destruction of capitalism, would you hire them if there were equally-good alternatives?
- ihsw2 9y agoIf they lacked the emotional regulation to restrain themselves then that would be a red flag that disqualifies them.
- oneeyedpigeon 9y agoWould publishing and distributing a manifesto amongst your colleagues fall beyond 'restraint'?
- zbentley 9y agoUnequivocal yes. If I wasn't paying them to do that on company time, it would negatively impact their performance towards goals that were requested.
- stale2002 9y agoThat is illegal, according to California law. It is illegal to prevent people from engaging in politics, in California.
- jacksmith21006 9y agoThis is not about politics. It is about basic human decency. There have been some that have since they to make it a social political thing. But the courts do not care about such things. You could never have someone like Damore on a team once they shared such an opinion. He should have kept it in his head. Why now nobody will hire him.
- stale2002 9y agoI mean, the law is the law. The person I was responding to specifically suggested making politics not allow at work. This suggestion is illegal. California law is extremely pro employee.
- jacksmith21006 9y agoActually California is very pro employer and maybe what you meant? Google obviously has a lot of reasons to fire Damore but they do not even need a reason. Former Google engineer sitting at home unemployed and unable to find a job supports he should have been fired.
- stale2002 9y agoGoogle can fire people for no reason, but that can't fire people for an illegal reason. And google definitely didn't fire him for no reason. It is illegal to engage in "Forbidding or preventing employees from engaging or participating in politics or from becoming candidates for public office." Here is the california law in question: http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=LAB§ionNum=1101 http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection... If there are smoking gun emails that say "We are going to fire him for his politics", then Google broke the law. All this information will come out during the lawsuit, and during discovery, if it exists.
- oneeyedpigeon 9y ago"Forbidding or preventing employees from engaging or participating in politics" sounds to me like a company can't prevent you from voting, or attending a political rally in your non-work time. It doesn't sound to me like a company can't make decisions based on your 'political' views, including treating you more or less favourably relative to other employees or candidates. I put political in quotes back there simply because it's a word that can be bent in all sorts of directions to mean anything from Politics to simply having an opinion on something. Remember, the opinion might be highly offensive and make working with others, on a team, more difficult.