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.

  • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.com
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    1 year ago

    The first amendment is in regards to what the government can impose onto citizens… What does this have to do with what amounts to a dress code for work?

    • Blake [he/him]@feddit.uk
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      1 year ago

      False equivalence. Free speech and the first amendment are not the same thing.

      Amazon spends millions on lobbying politicians, but prevents their employees from wearing a badge which expresses support for an extremely marginalised group.

      • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.com
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        1 year ago

        Free speech is literally a reference to the first amendment. There is no “right” to free speech outside of the first amendment.

        • Blake [he/him]@feddit.uk
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          1 year ago

          Wow, that Oracle really was hot shit then, she must have seen the future and shared the 1st amendment with the people of Athens in the 6th century BC.

          • TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            🤣Blake be like "Who is the freest speecher of all?"And Blake’s Oracle be like, “Whole Foods is the freest peach of all.”

            Just so you know… it’s not really that big of a leap to bring up the US first amendment when talking about a US company reacting to a US law with US action. Maybe you don’t need to jump to ancient Athens?

            • Blake [he/him]@feddit.uk
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              1 year ago

              I know it’s not a big leap, honestly it’s perfectly reasonable to assume. If the guy had just said “oh yeah, I had assumed he was talking about the first amendment because this is a US legal case” I’d have been like “yeah, fair enough” but he kept being a pedantic ass about it and trying to make out that I was somehow fucking stupid for thinking that the guy was talking about the broad concept of freedom of expression rather than the 1st amendment, lol

          • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.com
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            1 year ago

            Ah yes… Athens…

            https://www.britannica.com/biography/Socrates/The-Athenian-ideal-of-free-speech

            Socrates was prosecuted because of his religious ideas and political associations indicates how easily an ideal held dear by his fellow Athenians—the ideal of open and frank speech among citizens—could be set aside when they felt insecure.

            https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2006/2006.07.49/

            Through an examination of the American debate over the Bill of Rights and the political thought of John Locke, Saxonhouse articulates a modern conception of free speech that focuses on free speech as a necessary tool to check the actions of an always potentially tyrannical government.

            So… you wanna try that again? Notice that this is gasp in relation to the government. Not private property. So yes… in the context of this thread… which is US lawsuit against a US company… This would be the first amendment.

            Edit: Added missing information I meant to copy in… My bad.