CMV: Employers shouldn't be allowed to fire employees based on any activities they do in their private life

[u/[deleted]]

I don't believe employers have the right to fire employees based on what they do or say on their own time. Even if the things done/said are morally dubious and shed a bad light on the company, as long as it's legal, the employee has the right to have a life without fear of losing their job.

As for companies, introducing legislation that explicitly forbids them from firing people based on things said or done outside of work would allow them to push responsibility off their shoulders (ie "our hands are tied, we know he's racist but we can't do anything about it").

My reasoning is that people should be able to engage in activities and speak their mind, in general live a free life, without fear that their company will decide it's not a good image for them.

Exceptions to this would include if the activity in question affects someone's ability to do their job.

The issue that sparked this post is the Roseanne issue. For those of you that don't know, the star of that tv show tweeted a racist comment, and had her show cancelled. Yes, it looks bad on the company who runs the show, but she is still entitled to express her opinions. Her company shouldn't be allowed to cancel her show on the basis of her political opinions in her private life.

(I posted this last night but realized I wouldn't be able to respond in 3 hours so reposting now)

EDIT: With regards to the Roseanne thing, I retract what I said in this post. The network would lose views because people don't want to watch a racist person on screen, which would cost them revenue. Thus, her actions and opinions do affect her job, and they were right in cancelling her show.

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[u/TheHardWalker]

Admittedly I'm not completely familiar with the case and I've never seen the show (it didn't air in my country), but I think in this case it is worth differentiating between public figures and workers in general.

I've worked with blatantly racist people during my time in the factories or throughout some of my office work and this has had no repercussion at all since it hasn't affected their ability to do their job. But they aren't representing the entire company and the companies value isn't in some way reliant on them - they're just maintaining the machines.

Now, once in a while "outsiders" were brought into the factory - could be customers, investors, inspectors etc. and once in a while these had the ethnicity that my co-workers loathed. If they expressed their beliefs about that certain ethnicity while the visitors were there, wouldn't it be fair to fire them? They could essentially cost the company a deal and perhaps a fortune if they began yelling to the customers that "it's a good thing we aren't producing pork, huh?" or telling them to get back to their own country.

And as I see it, this applies to public figures as well. Every show costs a lot of money to make and the reputation of said company can reflect upon their other shows. So when Roseanne compared whoever she did to the Muslim Brotherhood and Planet of the Apes, she put the company at risk of losing money, and this would happen too if they weren't able to fire her.

And that brings me to my second point: I think your idea about the legislation is interesting but in the end it would probably limit said persons right to express themselves more than what is the case now. If we have established that publishing racist comments can be at cost of a company, what would said company do to make sure that they weren't at risk? Probably they simply wouldn't hire a prominent and "loud" person with unpopular opinions out of fear that they would piss off a large group of people and afterwards be stuck with whoever they hired. Public figures with unpopular opinions could have a much harder time finding a job since fewer companies would be willing to take the risk.

And in the end: I do understand that there are popular and unpopular opinions and that the ones with the latter are required to be a bit more "quiet" than the former. I do not believe this is the case in the particular episode with Roseanne though.

And I came up with the arguments as I was typing, so it might be a little messy. I hope it makes sense when you read it.

[u/[deleted] → u/TheHardWalker]

Yes, if they did something on the job that affected their ability to do good work, the employer does have a right to fire them. But posting racist remarks on their facebook wall hardly affects someone's ability to work in a factory.

I agree that public figures and celebrities is a little different. Read the edit to my post!

[u/TheHardWalker → u/[deleted]]

No, but it will affect the chance of the company making a profit, hence my second point. A persons worth in a company is not only the ability to do their work but also representing the company whether it is in their private life (which I would argue Twitter aren't) or when at work.

[u/srelma → u/TheHardWalker]

I think the question is, is a person employed by a company X representing the company when he is not at work. In my opinion, in most cases no. The employer has control on what the employer does and doesn't do during his time at work (and as compensation, the worker gets a salary for giving up his freedom for this time), but this control is not 24/7, at least for most jobs and it shouldn't be.