7 ms·

I don't know the details of this, but it does seem to make sense - it may be prohibited to fire an employee for requesting better working conditions, but if an

I don't know the details of this, but it does seem to make sense - it may be prohibited to fire an employee for requesting better working conditions, but if an employee refuses to serve a particular customer because they don't like them, that would seem to me a quite reasonable reason for termination. Labor law legitimately protects many parts of employee-employer relationships, but the employer's choice of which customers to serve is not one of them, as long as the service is otherwise legal to perform and does not put the employees at personal risk (e.g. from a specific customer that's abusive to your employees). How would/should a restaurant react if some waiters team up and argue to other waiters "we shouldn't serve those bloody [insert your favorite group] bastards in this restaurant, they're immoral and evil" ? Would/should their managers have the right to intervene and prevent that? IMHO such requests simply are not a legitimate demand that should be protected under labor law - for those aspects, the employer can set the policy and if you disagree with the employer's policy, you can quit or be fired even in countries/states where otherwise they can't fire you just because.

thethirdone 5y ago
> ... it may be prohibited to fire an employee for requesting better working conditions, but if an employee refuses to serve a particular customer because they don't like them, that would seem to me a quite reasonable reason for termination. I agree completely. However, if an employee doesn't refuse to serve a particular customer, but instead voices to management that they do not want to serve that customer, I don't think it should be ok to fire them. In this case, it seems to be less about declining to serve and more about voicing an opinion (showing a petition throughout the office).
- chii 5y ago
  > voicing an opinion (showing a petition throughout the office) voicing an opinion with the intent to gather enough employee consensus to pressure the employer to not serve a particular customer. So the end result is the same - an employee was able to override the decision on who to serve made by management/shareholder. An employee voicing an opinion is not wrong - but if the reason for said opinion is not in the best interest of the employer, that would mean the employer won't want to heed it unless forced by law.
  - jrochkind1 5y ago
    > voicing an opinion with the intent to gather enough employee consensus to pressure the employer to not serve a particular customer That's literally what makes it potentially protected by labor law though. Now, it's only protected if it counts as "working conditions". But gathering employee consensus to pressure the employer about "working conditions" is literally exactly what is protected by labor law. Whether the "reasons for their opinions" on working conditions are "in the best interest of the employer" or not. Under what circumstances and conditions do you think this law came about? --- > Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act (the Act) guarantees employees "the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection," https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/interfering-with-employee-rights-section-7-8a1 https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/in... "To engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection" is in fact what's protected, not "voicing opinions". Employers actually do have the right to fire you for "voicing opinions", in theory (the first ammendment constrains the government, not employers), although in practice it probably shouldn't be an opinion related to all that stuff above, or voicing the opinion might have been part of those activities which the employee has the right to do.
    - perl4ever 5y ago
      I don't think it's reasonable to pretend voicing opinions can be separated from "concerted activities". It's too cute to claim that even if only one person is expressing an opinion, that it isn't "concerted" and "for mutual aid". Even the first person to speak up about something is trying to get support from others, and if we used sophistry to allow employers to suppress that, then how do you get to the next step of organizing people? An honest person looks at their argument and if it leads to an absurdity, such as with any law completely negating it, the argument must be BS.
      - jrochkind1 5y ago
        Yeah, totally. But legally the voicing of opinions is protected because it's related to those "concerted activities". (as opposed to original commenter who thought it should be protected only when unrelated to those activities!) One reason this matters, is that employees do not in fact generally have the equivalent of first ammendment rights at work. I'm just saying the law in the US, agree or not. (although I'm not a lawyer, this is not legal advice). So for instance, if you work at, I dunno, a company that sells the color Blue, and you go around speaking at conferences on how Blue is actually the worst color and everyone should use Yellow instead, it's unlikely this would be considered a protected activity they can't fire you for. You don't generally have "free speech" rights at work. (The current law, whether we like it or not). If the original commenter thinks you should, that you should generally be able to voice whatever opinion you want totally unrelated to "organizing" activities, go around telling everyone that Blue is a terrible mistake of a color while working at Blue Inc and they shouldn't be able to fire you for it since you're just expressing your opinion... they are actually arguing for an expansion of labor rights, which is to say a restriction on employer ability to fire, that does not currently exist in the US. Which, sure, I could welcome that. It's not the way it works now. https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomspiggle/2018/09/28/free-speech-work-rights/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomspiggle/2018/09/28/free-spee...
robbedpeter 5y ago
How about serving taliban officials? Known slumlords, a notorious rapist, or how about someone like Epstein? Waiters and staff refuse service to people for moral and political reasons all the time, and good management backs their employees. The reputational cost from firing someone who had a plausibly good reason to refuse service keeps employers in line. Google is too big to fail, and can survive almost any negative impact that comes from firing employees for activism or even mere discussion. There is almost no comparable social or legal leverage shielding employees of massive corporations from being fired for deviating from completely neutral droneship.
- landemva 5y ago
  'Google is too big to fail' This could be the underlying problem. When will feds start anti-trust actions against the tech behemoths?
- radu_floricica 5y ago
  I happen to really really dislike you, personally, based on the opinions above. How would you feel if I refused to offer you service in your favorite cafe? This is called cancel culture. In a polarized society everybody has a beef with somebody else. To get served you'd need to have neighborhoods specific to each subculture - god knows the last elections were proof that it's not just a thought experiment. Or are you're going to insist that the minorities you mentioned are real scumbangs and they're the only ones not deserving service? Well, who decides that, society-wise? You'd need committees to discuss who's protected and who's not. Can you deny service to As? Or to Bs? God, what a mess. What we have now is a decent situation, mostly because it's simple and it works. You have a strong society-wide bias on offering service to everybody. The owner is free to deny service in extreme cases, but they very rarely do. The law says you can't filter based on a few criteria (like race), but that's mostly not needed because of the strong default above. Why change it?
  - zaarn 5y ago
    Cancel culture is both ways. If you ask "is it bad to deny serving someone you don't like" you also have to ask "is it bad to deny getting service from someone you don't like". Conversly, I don't like google and I try to avoid using their services. That's cancel culture. Or if you follow recent events, boycotting Gigabyte over exploding PSU's is cancel culture. Employees denying service to someone who just trashed the store and took a dump at aisle 5 are also participating in cancel culture. Airlines cancel customers who make the flight unsafe all the time. Heck, you can end up on a no-fly list and get cancelled by a huge number of airlines for that one time you popped the emergency exit to take a smoke on the wing of the plane, waiting for things to proceed. The main difference is that usually you don't call some of those cancel culture unless you dislike what it's about.
8note 5y ago
If the employees all collectively decide to quit, that sale still doesn't happen. The company can't give the service without the employees cooperation. Consider the waitresses saying "don't serve that guy, he tries to grab my butt every time" to each other. The managers are shit for forcing them to. They might not be able to get a sexual assault conviction, but that doesn't mean they should still be subjected to said customer

thethirdone 5y ago

> ... it may be prohibited to fire an employee for requesting better working conditions, but if an employee refuses to serve a particular customer because they don't like them, that would seem to me a quite reasonable reason for termination. I agree completely. However, if an employee doesn't refuse to serve a particular customer, but instead voices to management that they do not want to serve that customer, I don't think it should be ok to fire them. In this case, it seems to be less about declining to serve and more about voicing an opinion (showing a petition throughout the office).

chii 5y ago
> voicing an opinion (showing a petition throughout the office) voicing an opinion with the intent to gather enough employee consensus to pressure the employer to not serve a particular customer. So the end result is the same - an employee was able to override the decision on who to serve made by management/shareholder. An employee voicing an opinion is not wrong - but if the reason for said opinion is not in the best interest of the employer, that would mean the employer won't want to heed it unless forced by law.
- jrochkind1 5y ago
  > voicing an opinion with the intent to gather enough employee consensus to pressure the employer to not serve a particular customer That's literally what makes it potentially protected by labor law though. Now, it's only protected if it counts as "working conditions". But gathering employee consensus to pressure the employer about "working conditions" is literally exactly what is protected by labor law. Whether the "reasons for their opinions" on working conditions are "in the best interest of the employer" or not. Under what circumstances and conditions do you think this law came about? --- > Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act (the Act) guarantees employees "the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection," https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/interfering-with-employee-rights-section-7-8a1 https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/in... "To engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection" is in fact what's protected, not "voicing opinions". Employers actually do have the right to fire you for "voicing opinions", in theory (the first ammendment constrains the government, not employers), although in practice it probably shouldn't be an opinion related to all that stuff above, or voicing the opinion might have been part of those activities which the employee has the right to do.
  - perl4ever 5y ago
    I don't think it's reasonable to pretend voicing opinions can be separated from "concerted activities". It's too cute to claim that even if only one person is expressing an opinion, that it isn't "concerted" and "for mutual aid". Even the first person to speak up about something is trying to get support from others, and if we used sophistry to allow employers to suppress that, then how do you get to the next step of organizing people? An honest person looks at their argument and if it leads to an absurdity, such as with any law completely negating it, the argument must be BS.
    - jrochkind1 5y ago
      Yeah, totally. But legally the voicing of opinions is protected because it's related to those "concerted activities". (as opposed to original commenter who thought it should be protected only when unrelated to those activities!) One reason this matters, is that employees do not in fact generally have the equivalent of first ammendment rights at work. I'm just saying the law in the US, agree or not. (although I'm not a lawyer, this is not legal advice). So for instance, if you work at, I dunno, a company that sells the color Blue, and you go around speaking at conferences on how Blue is actually the worst color and everyone should use Yellow instead, it's unlikely this would be considered a protected activity they can't fire you for. You don't generally have "free speech" rights at work. (The current law, whether we like it or not). If the original commenter thinks you should, that you should generally be able to voice whatever opinion you want totally unrelated to "organizing" activities, go around telling everyone that Blue is a terrible mistake of a color while working at Blue Inc and they shouldn't be able to fire you for it since you're just expressing your opinion... they are actually arguing for an expansion of labor rights, which is to say a restriction on employer ability to fire, that does not currently exist in the US. Which, sure, I could welcome that. It's not the way it works now. https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomspiggle/2018/09/28/free-speech-work-rights/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomspiggle/2018/09/28/free-spee...

robbedpeter 5y ago

How about serving taliban officials? Known slumlords, a notorious rapist, or how about someone like Epstein? Waiters and staff refuse service to people for moral and political reasons all the time, and good management backs their employees. The reputational cost from firing someone who had a plausibly good reason to refuse service keeps employers in line. Google is too big to fail, and can survive almost any negative impact that comes from firing employees for activism or even mere discussion. There is almost no comparable social or legal leverage shielding employees of massive corporations from being fired for deviating from completely neutral droneship.

landemva 5y ago
'Google is too big to fail' This could be the underlying problem. When will feds start anti-trust actions against the tech behemoths?
radu_floricica 5y ago
I happen to really really dislike you, personally, based on the opinions above. How would you feel if I refused to offer you service in your favorite cafe? This is called cancel culture. In a polarized society everybody has a beef with somebody else. To get served you'd need to have neighborhoods specific to each subculture - god knows the last elections were proof that it's not just a thought experiment. Or are you're going to insist that the minorities you mentioned are real scumbangs and they're the only ones not deserving service? Well, who decides that, society-wise? You'd need committees to discuss who's protected and who's not. Can you deny service to As? Or to Bs? God, what a mess. What we have now is a decent situation, mostly because it's simple and it works. You have a strong society-wide bias on offering service to everybody. The owner is free to deny service in extreme cases, but they very rarely do. The law says you can't filter based on a few criteria (like race), but that's mostly not needed because of the strong default above. Why change it?
- zaarn 5y ago
  Cancel culture is both ways. If you ask "is it bad to deny serving someone you don't like" you also have to ask "is it bad to deny getting service from someone you don't like". Conversly, I don't like google and I try to avoid using their services. That's cancel culture. Or if you follow recent events, boycotting Gigabyte over exploding PSU's is cancel culture. Employees denying service to someone who just trashed the store and took a dump at aisle 5 are also participating in cancel culture. Airlines cancel customers who make the flight unsafe all the time. Heck, you can end up on a no-fly list and get cancelled by a huge number of airlines for that one time you popped the emergency exit to take a smoke on the wing of the plane, waiting for things to proceed. The main difference is that usually you don't call some of those cancel culture unless you dislike what it's about.

8note 5y ago

If the employees all collectively decide to quit, that sale still doesn't happen. The company can't give the service without the employees cooperation. Consider the waitresses saying "don't serve that guy, he tries to grab my butt every time" to each other. The managers are shit for forcing them to. They might not be able to get a sexual assault conviction, but that doesn't mean they should still be subjected to said customer