this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2023
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Amazon.com’s Whole Foods Market doesn’t want to be forced to let workers wear “Black Lives Matter” masks and is pointing to the recent US Supreme Court ruling permitting a business owner to refuse services to same-sex couples to get federal regulators to back off.

National Labor Relations Board prosecutors have accused the grocer of stifling worker rights by banning staff from wearing BLM masks or pins on the job. The company countered in a filing that its own rights are being violated if it’s forced to allow BLM slogans to be worn with Whole Foods uniforms.

Amazon is the most prominent company to use the high court’s June ruling that a Christian web designer was free to refuse to design sites for gay weddings, saying the case “provides a clear roadmap” to throw out the NLRB’s complaint.

The dispute is one of several in which labor board officials are considering what counts as legally-protected, work-related communication and activism on the job.

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[–] jasondj@ttrpg.network 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (22 children)

Honesty, imo, shame on Amazon for not barring anything but solid-colored, patterned, or Bezos-Empire-Branded masks, explicitly, in their dress code.

I’m a (mostly) vegan, liberal AF, solidly middle-class, homeowner married millenial parent (i.e the portrait of a Whole Foods customer), and I agree with BLM, but I would be put off by any political or politicalized messaging in a supplier/customer relationship. I’m here for your general tao seitan and a TTLA…not for your influence.

[–] KevonLooney@lemm.ee 21 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Saying that black people exist and should remain alive is not a political statement. Do you want to ban hats that say "veteran" too? Or maybe charity and cancer awareness logos?

Being a live black person is not a political act. Think about that when ordering some seitan and being "liberal AF", whatever that means.

[–] Lowbird@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago

This feels very similar to me to businesses freaking out and trying to prevent their employees from wearing rainbow flag or pronoun pins. Or rainbow masks, for that matter.

I think employee uniform requirements should be just enough to make employees identifiable so they can do their jobs (e.g. answer customer questions about where the lettuce is or whatever). Just a mandatory hat or shirt is enough to do that. Beyond that, they're humans. Let them be fucking humans.

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