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Ironically the reason cancellations of non-celebrities don’t work in Europe is because the laws are more leftist and thus quite explicit about how and for what sorts of things an employer is allowed to fire people. ”A non-spokesperson said something on their personal account and didn’t associate it with the company” not being one of those.
In October, Ireland was aflame with the story of a photogenic tech employee who incautiously criticised Israel on her personal account and expressed support for the Palestinian cause - seemingly unaware that her employer, Wix, is an Israeli company. They promptly decided to part ways with her. I was curious what had come of the story since and it's currently going through the Workplace Relations Commission - if her complaint is upheld, she stands to make up to €80k in lost earnings.
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Sure. But you know you might go to jail over certain views so there’s that.
The range of views which are de facto illegal to express for an American who relies on W-2 employment to eat is considerably larger than the range of views which are de jure illegal in other Western countries.
It's not clear to me that this is in fact the case. But let's say it is - something being de jure illegal is much, much harsher than something being de facto illegal. So it's possible for the situation you describe to exist, and for the American restrictions to still be overall more lenient.
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Which is the game theory view for firing HD lady. A bad spot in game theory is to have it be legal to espouse leftist views but defacto illegal to espouse right views. The place you want to land is everyone can have views. But it’s still better to firing everyone who has view than only have leftist views supported.
Seems like W-2 people don’t get to have views is the optimal position.
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That depends. For plenty of roles and organisations you're explicitly prohibited from having a political social media presence of any kind and you can get fired for that.
That said, you're almost always supposed to receive multiple formal warnings before being fired.
In France if you work for a random private company and retweet Eric Zemmour on your personal account and you get fired for it you probably have at least some recourse / legal options, though.
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Yes, it’s actually much harder to fire people for speech in France and Germany. Even if you’re arrested for speech in these countries, they make it more difficult for companies to fire you and it’s a hugely drawn-out process (it took years for the left to prevent Bjorn Hocke from retaining his teaching job for example, even after he faced repeated police/state action for his comments). Even in the UK there has to be an internal investigation and you’re put on leave for a long long time, and then it can all be challenged extensively (and is often overturned as in the case of the TERF who was fired) by and at employment tribunals.
That corporate comms in Manhattan can immediately fire any employee if there’s public heat after 1 hour of media attention at 4am is pretty unique to the US.
I mean, it's pretty unique to corporate positions too. Or at least was pretty unique to corporate positions. I think that's why this round of cancellations is so shocking to some- there's a sense of home depot cashiers being so far down the totem poll that they're treated as random civilians not subject to reprisals. I don't think getting the bud light marketing VP fired would have been controversial. I don't think LoTT getting teachers fired is controversial.
And when I notice who's getting upset about the cancellations, I think it's related to the red/blue violence as an offswitch/violence as a ratchet. In a real sense a lot of the people upset about getting a home depot cashier fired are the types who, let's be real, are probably a bit uncomfortable with Trump- even as they're more uncomfortable with wokeness. Conversely the people shrugging their shoulders with 'they hit us, why can't we hit them' aren't.
As Nybbler pointed out, there's nothing shocking about it, I've seen worse from progressives (there was a guy who got fired for cracking his knuckles, because someone decided that's the OK handsign, and that in turn must be a dogwhistle. The dude in question was Mexican, or something, by the way). I'm also not against "if they hit us, we hit them" (nor am I against Trump), I just don't think we should go after "civilians", as you describe them.
Again feel free to go "it's not like we didn't warn you guys", but celebrating/defending the cancellation is a step too far.
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It shouldn't be; the left did a LOT of cancellations of random civilians. Say the n-word on Twitbook on Sunday, lose your shitty retail job on Monday.
There was a high-profile tumblr called racistsgettingfired whose raison d'etre was precisely this.
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People say that, but there are parts of the US with very broad restrictions on what at-will employees can be fired for (California), or do not have a default assumption of at-will employment (Montana), and they are not especially resistant to cancel culture. Indeed, many cases the labor protections are what demands firing of some righties.
It depends. For example we don’t know what settlement Damore and Google came to but he was able to pursue legal action against them because California bars firing for political opinions. Nybbler claims it was “probably” very small but I’m much more skeptical, I think it was a larger settlement.
Damore hasn’t worked much recently for example even though his skillset and political cancellation would surely make him attractive to various Thielverse and other right-leaning tech companies. That suggests a big payout to me.
I'm not sure what you're using to support that. Damore's been working for some unnamed startup in Austin since 2018, according to his LinkedIn page, and it doesn't even look like a lead (or single-digit-number) position. That looks a lot more like 'right-leaning tech company' than fuck you money.
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In Europe, there's no need to fire wrongthinkers. You can just throw them in jail instead. Whatever the cure to cancel culture is, it's definitely not more leftism.
While this is true with countries like Britain which is a very underrated totalitarian police state oppressive far leftist tyranny, arresting far more people for speech than Russia, and even more so per capita, I do think there is value in not siding automatically with owners vs employees. There are definetly European countries which are freer than USA due to being more right wing and having less enforcement, which in the USA private organisations and state within the state and connected with the state and especially deep state activist mega groups like ADL (which can get Jewish CEO of huge companies to retalitate with adverts towards Elon Musk.
Fundamentally, the kind of people who owned media, the networking, mouthy capitalists, the activist capital that does exist are going to impose left wing cultural values on their workers and hire these kind of people. But it is the wrong framing of leftism vs rightism.
The right should not see itself as the party of giving rich cliques, or donors, whatever they want, whether it goes against the national interest, good cultural standards, average family, public morality, the right to speak the unpopular truth, the separation of political with regular life, etc. In addition to those who acquire their wealth through shady means, a person can be skilled and hard working and lucky, and connected and help economically, while politically be destructive because they use their funds to promote bad causes.
There is also a genuine value in the agency factor of the public vs smaller minorities. There is a lot of whining about the immorality of the mob and there is some truth too it, but there is also even greater immorality and much more focus in targeting them for influence, of isolated minority groups and elites. Conversely, it is harder to get the majority to go against the collective interest, even though it is possible, because the majority like smaller minorities can be also unwise. Still on many issues, the majority like immigration wanted one thing, and got something different. Most importantly, the majority can be manipulated and lead by said organized minorities.
Which then raises the question of what ought to be done about it. It isn't a simple goverment as protective of private sphere since organized activist groups and lobbies will try to capture as much influence in the goverment too. A part of the solution is to ban groups like hope not hate, ADL, OFCOM, open society, and many more and try to remove their fellow travelers who marched through the institutions. Where for example in Britain they failed to solve burglary in half the country in 3 years, while they are arresting in record numbers for speech, while lead under woke leadership. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13152403/amp/Police-failed-solve-single-break-half-country.html
These should be the targets for firing and even making their organizations illegal and in the worst cases subject to criminal prosecution, not people working at supermarkets. I also think there is a value in letting people err and have freedom to be wrong, even though we do need to force those controlling powerful institutions to a) not be enforcing, censorious of immoral morality b) to follow good moral standards and pursue the common good of their society and people.
I would love to see people like Soros clan and their top open societies people, the left wing activists, the NGO types, the version of these people within the corporate hierarchy, the new left bureaucrats, the extremist editors, many journalists and these kind of people to be suppressed and lose in all manner of ways. However, I don't want to see simple working people get fired for having asinine opinions.
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