Do you think people should be protected from punishment from their employer for expressing opinions

Ace Yonder

Ace Yonder

Well-Known Member
thewanderingjack said:
Unless they can get people doing a decent job... like, yeah the black guy could have done better, but the white guy does well enough... yeah, my business could do better if I didn't discriminate, but so long as it's netting profits over losses... it's all good.

I worked at a bakery. No women had worked there for as long as I knew of (5+ years)... probably never... both the manager and owner were like that... but it was still the popular bakery in town, cuz no one ever thought about it... They also discriminated against non Mexicans... which is both odd and not... the owner thought Mexicans would work harder for less... and the Mexican manager just didn't like working with non Mexicans... he seriously asked a native American if his family still wore hides and lived in a tepee and other shit like that... they had all kinds of other bad business practices (mold in the baking trays and pans, false advertising, over charging for things... we sold a loaf that I think was meant to have olive oil or something at a dollar more than the one that didn't, only they were the same. No one noticed. So, I guess that was all ok?
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That just that shows people where you live are kinda stupid for eating mold-prepped food. If people cared, it would change.
 
bearkat42

bearkat42

Well-Known Member
Padawanbater2 said:
What if you do it in private and someone records what you say without your knowledge like what happened to the owner of that basketball team a couple years ago?
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Donald Sterling is, without question, a vile human being. Honestly though, I didn't agree with him losing his team because of those recorded conversations. If the NBA was going to strip him of his team, there were so many more things from his past that they just completely turned a blind eye to. Years of housing discrimination, for example. His wife used to go around knocking on the doors of their apartment properties pretending to be a government employee just so he could keep count of how many blacks and mexicans lived there. The whole clip is interesting, but ESPN's Bomani Jones breaks down the effects of housing discrimination starting at around 4:32.

 
thewanderingjack

thewanderingjack

Well-Known Member
Ace Yonder said:
That just that shows people where you live are kinda stupid for eating mold-prepped food. If people cared, it would change.
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A) well yeah, people ae stupid all over... but B) they didn't see the mold, on the trays or bread, but there it was... if they had known then I'm sure it would've affected business...

But we're not talking about stupid people, but business owner rights... I mean, did that owner have a right to sell moldy bread if no one complained? Or lie about his product? Or any of those other things... pertinent to this, the discrimination?

I guess it's a bit like the above post about Donald Sterling...people didn't know, or people turned a blind eye... until FINALLY it came out and had an impact, usually because at least one person cares enough to push... seems like that's the way it goes...
 
Flaming Pie

Flaming Pie

Well-Known Member
Padawanbater2 said:
So what do you think? If I'm the manager of a Taco Bell and I say something racist towards Mexicans in the privacy of my own home and it gets leaked without my consent, then Taco Bell starts losing customers, do you think they should be allowed to fire me? Do you think that encroaches on my freedom of speech or is NLXSK1 correct in that the 1st amendment protects me from encroachment from my government, not my employer?
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Mexicans don't like taco bell. Lol

At least my husband doesn't. His mom makes everything from scratch and it is delicious.
 
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NLXSK1

NLXSK1

Well-Known Member
Padawanbater2 said:
Do you think an employer should have the right to fire you if you say something in the privacy of your own home that happens to get leaked?

What if you do it in private and someone records what you say without your knowledge like what happened to the owner of that basketball team a couple years ago?

It seems to me that people should be able to say whatever they want in the privacy of their own homes, but the fact is that if what they say is offensive to people and they work for a company where it matters, where it might affect sales, then that affects the livelihood of the employer. So this is one of those situations where the freedom of speech comes into conflict with the freedom to run your own business how you see fit.
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If you say something in the privacy of your own home by definition it is something that doesnt get out in public.

The employer has the right to terminate you if that happens. There is no 'defense' that allows an employer to be potentially embarassed or suffer revenue loss due to the actions of an employee while still having to keep them employed. Well, unless you work for the government....
 
bu$hleaguer

bu$hleaguer

Well-Known Member
As a small business owner I'm allowed to fire someone for any legal reason or for no reason at all.... That means I don't have to give a reason, but if I do, it can't be an illegal one such as race, religion, sexual orientation, gender, etc.

I fired a guy a few years back in my franchised place who went on Twitter and bad mouthed the corporation. The corp called me and asked who he was and forwarded me his tweets. His tweets were crazy, they said that the company tampered with the food and bad shit about how the corporation treated women. All made up, he was prob drunk and thought it was funny. He was a stand up comedian in his free time so I think he thought it was funny and didn't think it would cause a problem but I had to can him. He was like "why? Wtf man?" I was like "thank you and good luck, we just don't don't have a job for you anymore."

Who knows. As for the question in the op I agree with what @Ace Yonder said above
 
Fogdog

Fogdog

Well-Known Member
Padawanbater2 said:
Do you think an employer should have the right to fire you if you say something in the privacy of your own home that happens to get leaked?

What if you do it in private and someone records what you say without your knowledge like what happened to the owner of that basketball team a couple years ago?

It seems to me that people should be able to say whatever they want in the privacy of their own homes, but the fact is that if what they say is offensive to people and they work for a company where it matters, where it might affect sales, then that affects the livelihood of the employer. So this is one of those situations where the freedom of speech comes into conflict with the freedom to run your own business how you see fit.
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Interesting contrast that your point is creating for our reactionary right wingers and their hatred of political correctness. The racists among us rail against anybody who would criticize or in the case of corporations fire a person for hate speech that gets out in public. Yet here we are talking about a hypothetical statement and they are like, "yeah, they can do it". Taking the corporations side. Its an interesting two faced position that they take.

A hypothetical employee embarrasses a corporation? Fire his ass! A racist mouth breather? Oh that PC stuff has gone too far.
 
Fogdog

Fogdog

Well-Known Member
Padawanbater2 said:
This is interesting. I think this is pretty much how I feel about it, too. But how far do you believe this should extend? Should the employer have the right to fire you if you say something that only offends him? In other words, I guess we're getting into "right to fire" type issues. Prevalent in the midwest, if you say something disparaging about your employers religion, "I believe in evolution" etc., and it offends him, even though it might not affect his business, do you think he should have the right to fire you? In that case, I don't think he should have that right. So why the difference? Should he only have the right to fire you if it affects his business?
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I don't think unions let that happen so easily.
 
bu$hleaguer

bu$hleaguer

Well-Known Member
Fogdog said:
Interesting contrast that your point is creating for our reactionary right wingers and their hatred of political correctness. The racists among us rail against anybody who would criticize or in the case of corporations fire a person for hate speech that gets out in public. Yet here we are talking about a hypothetical statement and they are like, "yeah, they can do it". Taking the corporations side. Its an interesting two faced position that they take.

A hypothetical employee embarrasses a corporation? Fire his ass! A racist mouth breather? Oh that PC stuff has gone too far.
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I think they're speaking about legality as in if it is legal or not for the corp to fire the person, unless I'm reading it wrong.
 
Fogdog

Fogdog

Well-Known Member
Ace Yonder said:
No, because a business that hires and fires people based on race will inevitably do worse than a business that hires and fires people based on merit. So the economic incentive is against segregation, and economic incentives are the strongest way to influence change in business practices (in fact economic incentives are pretty much the strongest way to influence change period). I also think that if people are so eager to segregate, that speaks to a deeper problem that requires a deeper remedy. Even if you say "You can't fire them just because they're middle eastern", a racist person will just find another reason as an excuse to fire them (or more likely to not hire them in the first place). You need to fight the racism on a deeper level than just making private business owners pretend that's not the reason they're doing it.
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We are past discussing whether or not an employer should be allowed to legally discriminate aren't we? This is a Rob Roy kind of BS position.
 
bu$hleaguer

bu$hleaguer

Well-Known Member
Fogdog said:
I'm just looking at the tone of the rhetoric and amused by the hypocrisy.
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oh I get ya, I had to reread it again. Yeah I guess I see what you're saying, but I think it's the legality thing. i didn't hear anyone saying "fire his ass!" though, it was more along the lines of "yeah, corps and employers could fire em for it if they chose to."
 
Fogdog

Fogdog

Well-Known Member
bu$hleaguer said:
oh I get ya, I had to reread it again. Yeah I guess I see what you're saying, but I think it's the legality thing. i didn't hear anyone saying "fire his ass!" though, it was more along the lines of "yeah, corps and employers could fire em for it if they chose to."
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You are right. My point was weak and overwrought. There is different language when people are fired for non-PC language on the job but not in this thread.
 
Flaming Pie

Flaming Pie

Well-Known Member
Fogdog said:
You are right. My point was weak and overwrought. There is different language when people are fired for non-PC language on the job but not in this thread.
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What are you bitching about? Pada asked a question about whether or not it was appropriate to fire someone for expressing their opinions and all of us pretty much said that each situation is different.
 
Fogdog

Fogdog

Well-Known Member
Flaming Pie said:
What are you bitching about? Pada asked a question about whether or not it was appropriate to fire someone for expressing their opinions and all of us pretty much said that each situation is different.
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what are you bitching about?
 
Flaming Pie

Flaming Pie

Well-Known Member
Fogdog said:
Interesting contrast that your point is creating for our reactionary right wingers and their hatred of political correctness. The racists among us rail against anybody who would criticize or in the case of corporations fire a person for hate speech that gets out in public. Yet here we are talking about a hypothetical statement and they are like, "yeah, they can do it". Taking the corporations side. Its an interesting two faced position that they take.

A hypothetical employee embarrasses a corporation? Fire his ass! A racist mouth breather? Oh that PC stuff has gone too far.
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The question wasnt about racism. It could be differences in political or religious beliefs.
 
Fogdog

Fogdog

Well-Known Member
Flaming Pie said:
The question wasnt about racism. It could be differences in political or religious beliefs.
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My answer was factual. You are again truthy sorta fact-like speculating reasons, which weren't mentioned in my post. In the post you bitched about, I had back tracked from smearing the fucking racists that post here and just said in general racists do that. I back tracked because this thread isn't about racism and the fucking racists who post here had not said anything racist in the thread which in itself is remarkable. Why are you bitching?
 
Padawanbater2

Padawanbater2

Well-Known Member
Fogdog said:
Interesting contrast that your point is creating for our reactionary right wingers and their hatred of political correctness. The racists among us rail against anybody who would criticize or in the case of corporations fire a person for hate speech that gets out in public. Yet here we are talking about a hypothetical statement and they are like, "yeah, they can do it". Taking the corporations side. Its an interesting two faced position that they take.

A hypothetical employee embarrasses a corporation? Fire his ass! A racist mouth breather? Oh that PC stuff has gone too far.
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I'm glad you pointed that out
 
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