Amazon.comā€™s Whole Foods Market doesnā€™t want to be forced to let workers wear ā€œBlack Lives Matterā€ masks and is pointing to the recent US Supreme Court ruling permitting a business owner to refuse services to same-sex couples to get federal regulators to back off.

National Labor Relations Board prosecutors have accused the grocer of stifling worker rights by banning staff from wearing BLM masks or pins on the job. The company countered in a filing that its own rights are being violated if itā€™s forced to allow BLM slogans to be worn with Whole Foods uniforms.

Amazon is the most prominent company to use the high courtā€™s June ruling that a Christian web designer was free to refuse to design sites for gay weddings, saying the case ā€œprovides a clear roadmapā€ to throw out the NLRBā€™s complaint.

The dispute is one of several in which labor board officials are considering what counts as legally-protected, work-related communication and activism on the job.

  • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
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    1 year ago

    A company not wanting itā€™s employees to wear politicized materials while at work is what makes you mad? I suppose you also want them to be able to wear rebel flag or SS masks? A Trump facemask with MAGA on it? Maybe you just read the title?

    • michaelrose@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Black Lives Matter is a unambiguously good stance.

      The rebel flag signifies support for people who fought a war against their fellows for the right to hold others in chains. SS signifies support for a mass murderā€™s campaign to subjugate the world and drag the world into darkness. Support for Trump is support for an autocrat who would replace Democracy with a cult of personality.

      The fact that you cannot distinguish these beyond lumping them together as political stances doesnā€™t speak well for your analytical skills. How about you can support your fellow man but you canā€™t support evil?

      • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
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        1 year ago

        BLM may be a good thing, but the simple fact is that it has still become politicized and while not displaying BLM causes no customers to get pissy, displaying it does get some customers pissy. Companies arenā€™t obligated to ā€œrock the boatā€.

        • money_loo@1337lemmy.com
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          1 year ago

          So all it takes for you to stop supporting a cause is for someone to make it political, no matter how good or helpful it is?

          So say you find out your boss is stealing from you and you want to stop that from happening but then somebody makes up a stylized ā€œbosses are thievesā€ logo, and now suddenly workers all over the country canā€™t do anything to fight against wage theft at work?

          If someone says ā€œthe bosses are thievesā€, theyā€™re making a political statement and should be silenced? Please, help me understand how this works for you, because honestly it sounds like weā€™re gonna be losing a whole shit ton of rights in your world.

          • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
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            1 year ago

            Youā€™re thinking like a person instead of a business. If you run a business you arenā€™t going to want your employees wearing whatever slogans/agendas/sayings they want that might upset customers. The workplace isnā€™t an advertisement center for whatever an employee wants. You arenā€™t allowed to work at target unless youā€™re wearing khakis and a plain red shirt. Your employer is allowed to keep a neutral tone and stay out of hot topics if they want to.

            • Rambi@lemm.ee
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              1 year ago

              A lot of people donā€™t think that businesses should be allowed to control every element of their employees appearance. This is quite similar to a controversy in France when Euro Disneyland opened there and they had rules about how employees were allowed to have their hair and whether or not they could have piercings etc. In France and much of Europe itā€™s considered normal that an employee should have some bodily autonomy even if theyā€™re in the work place, but Disney was an American company so to them their employees shouldnā€™t mind their employer exerting so much control over them.

              Sure itā€™s probably in the businessesā€™ interest to make sure their employees all look a certain way, but to some that isnā€™t as important as employees being able to have agency over themselves and how they look.

            • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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              1 year ago

              Theyā€™re taking sides either way. This decision says to me theyā€™re taking the side of racists that donā€™t believe black lives matter.

              Most companies advertise the support BLM, itā€™s just good marketing. Banning BLM is the opposite of this. Itā€™s not a good business decisions. Theyā€™ve lost me as a customer, and I donā€™t think Iā€™m all that special.

              Not a good business move.

    • Lifted_lowered@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      Itā€™s not actually a problematic political stance to state that Black Lives Matter, itā€™s unambiguously good, whereas the other things you mention are hate speech, hope that helps.

      • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
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        1 year ago

        I didnā€™t say it was good, bad, or neutral. The fact is that it doesnā€™t matter, because as Iā€™ve already stated, itā€™s a politicized subject.

    • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      No I donā€™t want them to allow Confederate, Nazi, or Trump symbols. Because those things suck.

      What is it with people that think that weā€™re supposed to be fair to racist assholes? Learn a little about the paradox of tolerance, ok?