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> It stems from a lawsuit originating from Elon Musk, where he fired people for criticizing him in their personal, off-work time. Workers certainly have the ri
by delichon 1y ago
> It stems from a lawsuit originating from Elon Musk, where he fired people for criticizing him in their personal, off-work time.
Workers certainly have the right to quit based on Elon Musk's off-work comments. Why should Musk have less right to free association? If my gardener keeps calling me an asshole even when he's not working for me, should I need a separate justification to fire him? How many people could I hire without losing my freedom to associate?
- ilovecollies 1y ago>If my gardener keeps calling me an asshole even when he's not working for me It is a true factual statement, leon is an asshole. Also, since when does leon's freedoms trump mine? leon's free association gains precedent over my freedom of speech? Where does it stop? Let's say I associate myself with a religion that leon doesn't like. You know the one that leon likes to salute in public. leon's free association gains precedent over my freedom of religion, too?
- itsdrewmiller 1y agoBad analogy. Gardeners are not typically w2 employees, and domestic servants are excluded from the NLRA anyway. If you're talking about a gardener at your hotel where you are the manager, then yeah they should be able to complain about how your bad behavior impacts their work and the business.
- mcphage 1y ago> Workers certainly have the right to quit based on Elon Musk's off-work comments. Why should Musk have less right to free association? Nobody is disputing Musk’s right to quit if he doesn’t like his workers’ comments.
- palmotea 1y ago> Workers certainly have the right to quit based on Elon Musk's off-work comments. Why should Musk have less right to free association? I think we need to stop pretending that some random Joe and the richest man on earth are an apples to apples comparison. It's pretty clear that individual rights that are fine when exercised by a regular person with regular-person power can turn into tyranny when exercised by someone with extraordinary power. To given an extreme example to prove the point: the First Amendment would be dead letter if extremely wealthy person were allowed to control all the businesses in the country and was allowed to fire anyone who criticized him on their personal time. Musk is the richest man on Earth, he should have extra constraints on his behavior, due the the power his wealth gives him.
- UncleMeat 1y agoPower. We passed laws creating labor protections because we recognized that labor has a power imbalance with the bosses and that prior to federal protections this turned into straight up violence (bosses literally machine-gunning down labor protestors). The law does not need to be context-agnostic.