zlacker

>>claude+(OP)
> “We support every employee’s right to criticize their employer’s working conditions, but that does not come with blanket immunity against any and all internal policies,” Herdener said.

> Amazon’s external communications policy prohibits employees from commenting publicly on its business without corporate justification and approval from executives. Herdener previously said the policy did not allow employees to “publicly disparage or misrepresent the company.”

Amazon is straight up firing these people for expressing their personal opinions. Amazon isn't even claiming they lied, or pretend to speak officially, or any other reason.

>>advise+ce
Uhh, I don't want to be Amazon defender, but in US most of the employment is at will. In practical terms, they can fire you for any or no reason at all. There are practicalities that come into play that have to do with unemployment insurance and whatnot, but company policy violation is a defensible 'cause' for firing.

I am not a lawyer nor am I condoning this, but them is the facts.

edit: added play

>>A4ET8a+kf
I think people are outraged not because it's illegal, but because it's unconscionable. I think the general understanding is people shouldn't have outside-work activities be held against them, maybe it's time for the law to catch up.

It's pretty easy to come up with a lot of absurd and "legal" at-will policies (e.g. we'll fire anybody who watches porn)

>>alexan+Ej
In that case, people should make it illegal. Like they did in most other countries.

The US is full of outrage about companies doing unethical things but nobody wants to make unethical things illegal.

>>Noughm+xk
Without getting into all of the hazards about legislating morality it's impractical in our current climate. I don't think this should be illegal, personally.

I do think that it would be helpful to make the decision making public though. Limited legal liability isn't limited moral liability. Rather than saying "amazon fired" someone they should tell us "Jane Doe a manager at Amazon made the decision to fire."

People shouldn't hide behind the company logo when they do shitty things to other people. And if you want to rationalize it, cool, do it with your name attached so your pastor, spouse, friends, and kids know the things you'll do for a paycheck and you can justify it all you want to your community.

>>qppo+Hn
I would immediately implement a special role for the head of HR: official decider of all firing decisions. No one will blame the head of HR because they'll know that they were only carrying out someone else's decision, while no one would blame the original decider because no one knows who it was.

>>mcherm+Ss
Why would you want to create a workplace without personal responsibility for decision making? All I'm saying is to make that personal responsibility public.

It's pretty telling to me that I'm being downvoted for saying that I think people should own up to their decisions in the workplace that impact other people and are questionable ethically. Removing any kind of moral liability for those decisions is how we wind up with businesses that employ good people that do shitty things to other good people.

>>qppo+Xv
But it sounds like your recipe for responsibility is mob justice. What other possible result could come from publicizing the name of "the person responsible" for the firing?