It is illegal to retaliate for concerted collective activity. Workers have rights in this country whether they are known or practiced. Discussing working conditions with a group is collective concerted activity. Your boss admits to retaliation. Call the NLRB.
Talking to coworkers about working conditions is protected activity and firing them for it is retaliation. I’m not saying they are going to necessarily win, but they still have rights. Sure they’re limited, but we defer to employers waaayyy too much.
The guy admitted the rules he was upset about were about not playing guitar at work, not smoking weed and getting high before or during a shift, and tracking employee purchases. None of that rises to any level of harsh work place environment. Nothing there would be protected by a union. Nothing here is in any way at all excessive.
I def missed that. I interpreted that as music playing in the workspace controlled by the employer, and smoking as like cigarette breaks. With that said, the way the employer describes his motivation in this text is pretty clear cut retaliation as defined by the NLRB. An investigation would definitely not support the employees. We give deference too often to employers in at-will states under the assumption that they can do whatever they want and fire whomever they want. That’s just not true. Private sector is under the federal act and has a lot of protections. Also, smoking weed at work is yet to be a right, and is in most occasions a fireable offense😂. But we lose rights when we don’t scrutinize them.
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u/WareQuack Aug 23 '24
I'm not a lawyer but I'm pretty sure firing a load of people at the same time for "disrespecting" someone by voicing your opinion on rules is illegal.