• RidcullyTheBrown@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    25
    arrow-down
    20
    ·
    6 months ago

    Discussing politics at the work place has been an HR violation for some time, but speaking against the company policy or its customers has always been a fireable ofense. I’m not sure why this surprises anyone.

    Sure, google is an evil corporation and there’s lots of reasons to hate them, but why are we focusing on this specific thing which is common across all workplaces?

    And yes, if you find out your employer is constructing concentration camps and you openly speak against that, you’re probably going to lose your job. Why is this even a question?

      • SupraMario@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        arrow-down
        6
        ·
        6 months ago

        Lol you’re getting tossed in jail doing this in a communist society…this isn’t about capitalism at all. It’s about keeping people from creating a hostile work environment, look how polarized politics is online, shit gets heated in a work setting? It’s a no go for any sane company wanting to keep the peace between employees.

        • ???@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          edit-2
          6 months ago

          Just because communism also sucks does not mean that capitalism has not ruined our lives.

          • SupraMario@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            6 months ago

            No one said it hasn’t helped it some, but until you have magical replicators like in star trek, people will still be people. You cannot stop human nature to want more.

        • DAMunzy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          6 months ago

          If the employees owned the firm, then no they are not.

          Authoritarian Communism? Yup, it sucks too and I’d call that out.

          • SupraMario@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            6 months ago

            There isn’t anything stopping workers now from creating employee own companies. They exist today.

        • Fedizen@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          6 months ago

          I think maybe you’re conflating capitalism and politics.

          The need for workers to voice out against company policies and actions often necessary for safety of workers, customers, etc. This is required for capitalism to work to any standard.

          Its not hard to see how firing employees for noting safety problems can cause problems. The obvious case for this is Boeing where they started punishing people for doing basic quality control work.

    • lemmyreader@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      13
      ·
      6 months ago

      Discussing politics at the work place has been an HR violation for some time, but speaking against the company policy or its customers has always been a fireable ofense. I’m not sure why this surprises anyone.

      Looks like a navel-gazing USA thing. Here in Europe I cannot imagine that there’s many companies who’d fire workers for protesting or tells them to shut up forever.

      • ???@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        10
        ·
        edit-2
        6 months ago

        Here in Sweden, firing an employee for giving an opinion on company policy is illegal. Just look at the Tesla union wars.

        • RidcullyTheBrown@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          6 months ago

          That’s not actually true. Even in Sweden, employees can be fired for misconduct and what constitutes misconduct is a complex matter. But more importantly, in the Tesla case, those employees are on strike which is a different issue.

          • ???@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            6 months ago

            They can be fired for misconduct, yes, What makes you think protests or giving opinons on work related mtter, possibly supoorted by a union, would be interpreted as “misconduct”? Can you give an example of a case like that where misconduct was having an issue with selling products to war criminals or similar?

            • RidcullyTheBrown@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              arrow-down
              2
              ·
              6 months ago

              Publicly labeling customers as “war criminals” is misconduct and will get you fired anywhere in the world, yes. Stop pretending you misunderstand this simple fact.

              • ???@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                5
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                6 months ago

                Can you show that in Sweden?

                If not maybe you could stop pretending to misunderstand a simple fact.

                • RidcullyTheBrown@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  6 months ago

                  That’s stupid. How can I show you an instance of someone talking against a customer publicly is Sweden? Calming that employees cannot get fired for damaging the business in any country is completely false. Thinking that the situation in Sweden with Tesla is similar to what happened in Google is completely ignorant.

                  I understand simple facts extremely well. The problem is that you’re trying to make this situation into something it isn’t

                  • ???@lemmy.world
                    link
                    fedilink
                    English
                    arrow-up
                    2
                    arrow-down
                    1
                    ·
                    6 months ago

                    Can you give me the exact law that says this would be the case in Sweden?

      • RidcullyTheBrown@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        6 months ago

        You should be aware of the fact that Google & the others have offices in Europe and they have the same policy here too. These type of policies fit well within the legal framework in most EU countries. And I guarantee that people would get fired over protests disrupting the workplace if found unwarranted.

    • Gabu@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      6 months ago

      which is common across all workplaces?

      In your shithole country, maybe.

        • Gabu@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          6 months ago

          Even if we ignore what @prole wrote, in civilized countries you’re allowed to break company policy if it infringes your rights, regardless of what a contract says.

          • RidcullyTheBrown@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            5
            arrow-down
            6
            ·
            6 months ago

            you’re allowed to break company policy if it infringes your rights

            No country guarantees you the right to openly discuss politics in the workplace though.

        • prole@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          edit-2
          6 months ago

          In what country do you think you’re allowed to violate company policy?

          Lol did you already forget what you said? Or did your original comment actually say, “Violating company policy at the work place has been an HR violation for some time…” Because yeah, no shit. Somehow I don’t think that’s what you were going for…

          Did you purposefully completely change the topic, or was that some kind of “sly” attempt to pivot? Shit is real weird.

          Maybe you were about to ask the actual logical follow-up question of, “In what country do you think you’re allowed to discuss politics at work?” before doing a quick google search and realizing you’d make yourself look even stupider.

          As if the entire conversation wasn’t about whether or not something should be allowed to be a company’s policy. Not whether or not employees should be able to break their work’s HR policy. Do you not see the distinction here?

          • RidcullyTheBrown@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            4
            arrow-down
            3
            ·
            6 months ago

            You must be very confused. I did not forget anything. I’m simply making the claim that your impression that this happens only in my “shitty” country is wrong and if you tell me what country you live in, I can give you multiple examples of it happening there too. You’re probably misinformed or ignorant of the law if you think it doesn’t.

            • prole@sh.itjust.works
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              4
              arrow-down
              5
              ·
              edit-2
              6 months ago

              “A company should not be able to make X part of their policy.”

              In what country is an employee allowed to violate their company’s policy?

              That’s you. If only there was a word for this… Shmallacy?

              The actual question would be,

              In what country is an employer barred from firing a person for talking about politics?

              Maybe I’m giving you too much credit, but I feel like you knew this and realize how stupid you sounded. The better thing to do would probably just have been to quietly exit the conversation.

              By the way, check usernames, I just entered this thread.

    • ???@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      6 months ago

      Why is this a surprise to us? We had faith in humanity.

      And is it really common in all workplaces?

    • whotookkarl@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      6 months ago

      Not being able to discuss politics at work is not really the case for everyone though, it’s worker politics that aren’t allowed, if the politics agree with the owner class they’ll set up a PAC for it. Whoever heard of an executive or board member fired for discussing politics that paint the organization in a positive light? I also think it’s worth pointing out most companies would fire for this and are authoritative in structure and don’t allow for democratic practices like elections, petitioning, protesting, etc. Just because it’s that way now doesn’t mean it always will be with good labor protections.