Saturday, November 10, 2018

Worker fired for wearing shirt

If you follow the news you have undoubtedly heard of the hospital worker who was fired for a picture showing him wearing a shirt with a Confederate Flag and a noose on it.

The worker was not charged with a crime. He was not convicted in a court where he was granted the protections in the Bill of Rights.

I always figured that what I wore and what I did after work hours was my business, not my employer's business. As long as I was not leaking intellectual property and reported to work ready to do my job, i.e. not hung-over, stoned or drastically short of sleep, it was not their business.

I don't think the progressives who are applauding this development have thought this through.

By extension, an employer could fire somebody who cross-dresses on their own time. Clothing choices on your own time are now a fire-able offense.

They could fire somebody who has a tattoo that is usually covered up but is revealed in a single photo posted on social media.

If I can get fired over a tee-shirt I am wearing on my own time, it means I can get fired for who I share a bedroom with or my choice in erotic accessories: silk-or-nylon-or-leather, live-fresh-or-frozen.

Firing somebody over a picture of a tee shirt, no matter how distasteful it may be to some people is a very bad precedent.

---The guys at coffee wanted to know who took the picture of him voting. In Michigan, it is a felony to take pictures inside a polling place. I assume it is the same elsewhere.

So did the person who took the snapshot commit a felony and then did the hospital use the image created during the commission of that felony to fire the worker?

3 comments:

  1. As far as taking pictures in a polling place, it varies widely depending on the state. I saw a list before the election last week - in some states, no photography is allowed near a polling place at all; in some states everything, including pictures of your ballot, are allowed, and other states are various places in between.

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  2. I don't know about that hospital, but I know there are jobs with contracts that allow them to fire you for behavior outside of work... I used to work with some guys that had contracts where they could lose their job if they got a speeding ticket on their own time.

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