I think people should be allowed to make political statements outside of a work context without risking their jobs—but with our current societal norms siding with corporate image concerns, this does seem in-line with the norms of that approach.
Define “political statement”.
Because it looks like you’re putting “this is just like beginning of the holocaust”, “non-whites don’t deserve human rights” and “let’s seriously consider not having a secret police” in the same bracket here.
A statement being a political position doesn’t (or rather shouldn’t) automatically shield you from the other meanings of that statement and writing that off as all being “corporate image concerns” is insidious.
Should an employee who advocates for abortion rights be able to be fired because their employer doesn’t like the optics of their statement? Should an employee who vouches for a particular political candidate be able to be fired for it? I think we can both agree that a person who advocates for the genocide of a people should be punished, but where do you draw the line? As much as I don’t really care for corporate interests, there are real consequences for companies that continue to employ people with controversial views; why would they want to continue to employ those people when they could win back public favor by firing them?
I don’t think I could define a line between what’s “accepted” political speech that’s protected against employer reprisal and what’s not. Unless we go old stand-bys, such as calls for violence, which are easy to evade. I’m not suggesting this is an easy or even a possible problem to solve; all I meant was that think employees should be protected from firing for reasonable political statements. What “reasonable” is defined as is a much more complicated question, and I concede I don’t have an answer for it.
Define “political statement”.
Because it looks like you’re putting “this is just like beginning of the holocaust”, “non-whites don’t deserve human rights” and “let’s seriously consider not having a secret police” in the same bracket here.
A statement being a political position doesn’t (or rather shouldn’t) automatically shield you from the other meanings of that statement and writing that off as all being “corporate image concerns” is insidious.
No, you define it.
Should an employee who advocates for abortion rights be able to be fired because their employer doesn’t like the optics of their statement? Should an employee who vouches for a particular political candidate be able to be fired for it? I think we can both agree that a person who advocates for the genocide of a people should be punished, but where do you draw the line? As much as I don’t really care for corporate interests, there are real consequences for companies that continue to employ people with controversial views; why would they want to continue to employ those people when they could win back public favor by firing them?
I don’t think I could define a line between what’s “accepted” political speech that’s protected against employer reprisal and what’s not. Unless we go old stand-bys, such as calls for violence, which are easy to evade. I’m not suggesting this is an easy or even a possible problem to solve; all I meant was that think employees should be protected from firing for reasonable political statements. What “reasonable” is defined as is a much more complicated question, and I concede I don’t have an answer for it.