Should political affiliation be a protected class in the workplace?

[Anonymous]

If someone’s political beliefs are causing them to be disruptive and/or prevents them from effectively getting their job done than it should be grounds for dismissal.

However if a person just minds their own business and you find out on social media or elsewhere that they have strong leftist/conservative beliefs then who cares? Seriously who gives a sh*t as long as they are good at their job and don’t cause any problems in the workplace?

Anyway most states have no laws to protect employees against their political beliefs.

However many people myself included have experienced very real past discrimination because of this (e. g. cancel culture). Should this change?

Political affiliation should be protected federally just as long the persons beliefs doesn’t directly hinder their job performance.

It should not be protected.

Updates

+1 y

I am trying to be impartial about this question. A company should be able to fire you if:

- if you participated in a riot
- if you are part of a group that is fringe to the point it engages in illegal activities and/or initiates PHYSICAL violence (some people think verbally disagreeing is violence which is bs)
- If you publish speech that explicitly calls for violence. This should be easy to identify (you call for the death of a politician). But this has been twisted lately.

Updates

+1 y

A company should NOT be able to fire you just because if:

- you explicitly identify as conservative or republican.
- you peacefully show support or disdain for politicians or political causes
- you peacefully protest.

Now I have tried very hard to keep this poll question impartial. But let’s be honest you are much higher risk of being canceled in corporate America if identify as one major political affiliation vs the other nowadays.

[Anonymous]

Ok so lets discuss this that is an interesting question.
First I do think as long as it doesn't impose the work political opinions shouldn't be able to be used as a reason to fire someone.
On the other hand where does 'influencing your work' start?
For excample:

• I am a conspiracy theorists and publish on my public twitter profile these theories. I am also a person that has customer contact and people avoid my company, where I am employed, because they think the company supports my views. It doesn't effect what I do at work it affects the decision of others and negativly the company.
• The company is open and the company policies are inclusive which is publicly known and a selling point for the company. They hire me and thought because I applied at that company I shared their values. Now it becomes known that I dont support any of their values and was just in for money as this position was the one I could find. People learn of me in the company, because I publish it on twitter for example, and think the company is hyprocritic in nature. What if I am in a position without costomer contact and the best at my work? They can't say I dont do my work, I am officially not a public face of the company. But by being in this company, it looses money because of me instead of gaining it.

So these situations dont work with a single person in a large company. For that is had to be a lot of people in a bug company. But imagine a local small company like a small shop, backery, a bar etc.

[Asker]

Well the bigger question is why should companies have “values” that are now becoming increasingly politically partisan in the first place?

Businesses, companies and corporations exist to market services and goods to make a profit. That in itself isn’t “greed” it’s just reality or the company goes bankrupt. It’s that simple. Now there is a separate discussion to be had about corporate abuse/greed. However any business needs to turn a profit to exist or it will cease to exist.

So why is it lately that many corporations are getting involved in political causes and/or discriminating against employees who don’t support those partisan causes? It has to due with media coverage and small yet determined sector of employees who will file lawsuits and feel entitled to turn the workplace environment into support their views.

[purplepoppy]

If you don't want to be held accountable for your extremist views don't post them online, especially where your company can see them. They will want to distance themselves from you and this will mean letting you go. No company wants their reputation tarnished or worse still find itself boycotted or under investigation because of your extremist views.

[Asker]

So what are “extremist” views exactly? That often a subjective judgement.

If you are involved with a riot or openly part of a fringe extremist group that’s one thing? But what if you like or hate a certain politician’s policy?

[Avicenna]

I think you're right about this. A free society should not see people discriminated against for their views, especially if those views are not discussed at work and do not affect how someone does their job. The scope for abuse is far too great not to protect political views.

[Asker]

As long it isn’t directly impacting their job performance and/or disrupting the work place then let it be. Unless someone explicitly engages in something illegal (e. g. rioting) for political purposes it is plain discrimination to refuse to hire or fire someone based on who they vote for.

[Anonymous]

The left doesn't believe in free speech. Their new weapon is to try to ruin the lives of those they disagree with. Take their job, their livelihood, their families and their dignity. The left is sick in the head.

[Asker]

Yep. However I am trying to stay calm with this.

I want to patiently hear the dissenters viewpoints. I already know what they are going to say however I want to give someone a chance to bring up some thing I haven’t thought of before. Doubt it will happen but I would like to be surprised for once.

[Opinion Owner]

I have a strong suspicion that if they didn't control the government bureaucracy, academia and 90% of the media, they'd have a very different opinion. If it were them the ones constantly being targeted for simply having opinions that differ from theirs, shut out from employment, education and general everyday life, they'd be hollering.

[Asker]

Again how often do you see leftists being canceled? Very rarely. They know they are safe. They believe it’s their way or NO way. Politics IS their religion.

The thing is most conservatives aren’t used to being politically engaged and active. We aren’t boycotting, protesting and filing discrimination lawsuits the same way the left adamantly does (there are hard statistics to back this up). We get agitated and complain often. But other then voting most of us aren’t used to taking direct action.

One area we NEED to start is boycotting corporations that push woke agendas. Anheiser Busch took a much deserved kick in the nuts after the Dylan Mulvaney insanity. But it had to take the most outrageous idea (e. g. pushing trans values on working class white men) to finally see a hard lesson delivered. The Ivy League leftist marketing VIP really thought she could get away with such a stupid idea. But finally conservatives collectively took action and it worked! But why didn’t men do this to Gillette razors a few years ago when they came out witj their male bashing commercial?

For some stupid reason conservatives have this “oh this is bullshit but what are we going to do?” and we don’t take collective action. We figure things will magically get better but instead they get worse.

[Opinion Owner]

I agree conservatives need to be more aware of where we spend our money and withhold business from companies that hate us, but I don't think they really care either way. It's why you see them side with the left regardless of how conservatives react. They've already done a cost/benefit analysis and figured the business they lose from conservatives is not as bad as the constant barrage of negative press they would get from the media and the special interest groups. Also, the reason conservatives really don't join together is because we're more about individualism and freedom. We don't go after people and they're families collectively like the fascist leftists.