I don't think there is some "special right" at work here. I think some people who work at Github have decided that they don't like a deal their employer made, a

I don't think there is some "special right" at work here. I think some people who work at Github have decided that they don't like a deal their employer made, and presumably if said employer is trying to "quell employee anger" then enough of their employees must be angry enough to move the needle for their business. This is fine, because employees are not in principle slaves. They do have a right to tell their employers to go fuck themselves "at will", just as the opposite is true. Anybody who takes a stand like this is exercising a privilege that not everybody enjoys, sure, but you're running with that in a suppressive direction (why should Github employees get to be special if not everyone can be special, and by the way (gasp) what if they aren't perfectly logical and fair in their activism?) while I'd go the other way: in an ideal world everybody would enjoy this privilege, and any workers who can take a stand for what they believe in certainly should. The alternative is that corporate leaders alone are responsible for imposing ethics on the markets they play in, and we all know the sorts of decisions such people tend to make.