Amazon.com’s Whole Foods Market doesn’t want to be forced to let workers wear “Black Lives Matter” 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 it’s forced to allow BLM slogans to be worn with Whole Foods uniforms.

Amazon is the most prominent company to use the high court’s June ruling that a Christian web designer was free to refuse to design sites for gay weddings, saying the case “provides a clear roadmap” to throw out the NLRB’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 it’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 murder’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 doesn’t speak well for your analytical skills. How about you can support your fellow man but you can’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 aren’t obligated to “rock the boat”.

        • 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 “bosses are thieves” logo, and now suddenly workers all over the country can’t do anything to fight against wage theft at work?

          If someone says “the bosses are thieves”, they’re making a political statement and should be silenced? Please, help me understand how this works for you, because honestly it sounds like we’re gonna be losing a whole shit ton of rights in your world.

          • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
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            1 year ago

            You’re thinking like a person instead of a business. If you run a business you aren’t going to want your employees wearing whatever slogans/agendas/sayings they want that might upset customers. The workplace isn’t an advertisement center for whatever an employee wants. You aren’t allowed to work at target unless you’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 don’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 it’s considered normal that an employee should have some bodily autonomy even if they’re in the work place, but Disney was an American company so to them their employees shouldn’t mind their employer exerting so much control over them.

              Sure it’s probably in the businesses’ interest to make sure their employees all look a certain way, but to some that isn’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

              They’re taking sides either way. This decision says to me they’re taking the side of racists that don’t believe black lives matter.

              Most companies advertise the support BLM, it’s just good marketing. Banning BLM is the opposite of this. It’s not a good business decisions. They’ve lost me as a customer, and I don’t think I’m all that special.

              Not a good business move.

    • Lifted_lowered@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      It’s not actually a problematic political stance to state that Black Lives Matter, it’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 didn’t say it was good, bad, or neutral. The fact is that it doesn’t matter, because as I’ve already stated, it’s a politicized subject.

    • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      No I don’t want them to allow Confederate, Nazi, or Trump symbols. Because those things suck.

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