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Whole Foods argues it can ban BLM masks because the Supreme Court let a Christian business owner refuse same-sex couples (fortune.com)

submitted 2 years ago by Grayox@lemmy.ml to c/worldnews@lemmy.ml

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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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[-] SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 14 points 2 years ago

Welp, just cancelled Amazon Prime. Never shopped at Whole Foods, so can't do any more there.

Kinda the straw that broke the camel's back for me. Probably should've done it a long time ago with all the union busting and general shittiness they are towards employees. But FFS if you're gonna pay people the bare minimum, treat them like cogs, at least allow them to have something they care about on their person while they're doing that shitty job.

Saying that black people are humans and their lives matter as much as any other human should be the least controversial thing ever. But a bunch of racists made it controversial and Amazon is just going along with that.

[-] ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 9 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

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[-] michaelrose@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 years ago

Black Lives Matter is a unambiguously good stance.

The rebel flag signifies support for people who fought a war against their fellows for the right to hold others in chains. SS signifies support for a mass murder's campaign to subjugate the world and drag the world into darkness. Support for Trump is support for an autocrat who would replace Democracy with a cult of personality.

The fact that you cannot distinguish these beyond lumping them together as political stances doesn't speak well for your analytical skills. How about you can support your fellow man but you can't support evil?

[-] ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

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[-] michaelrose@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago

Maybe we shouldn't coddle and normalize bigots

[-] money_loo@1337lemmy.com 1 points 2 years ago

So all it takes for you to stop supporting a cause is for someone to make it political, no matter how good or helpful it is?

So say you find out your boss is stealing from you and you want to stop that from happening but then somebody makes up a stylized “bosses are thieves” logo, and now suddenly workers all over the country can’t do anything to fight against wage theft at work?

If someone says “the bosses are thieves”, they’re making a political statement and should be silenced? Please, help me understand how this works for you, because honestly it sounds like we’re gonna be losing a whole shit ton of rights in your world.

[-] ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

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[-] Rambi@lemm.ee 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

A lot of people don't think that businesses should be allowed to control every element of their employees appearance. This is quite similar to a controversy in France when Euro Disneyland opened there and they had rules about how employees were allowed to have their hair and whether or not they could have piercings etc. In France and much of Europe it's considered normal that an employee should have some bodily autonomy even if they're in the work place, but Disney was an American company so to them their employees shouldn't mind their employer exerting so much control over them.

Sure it's probably in the businesses' interest to make sure their employees all look a certain way, but to some that isn't as important as employees being able to have agency over themselves and how they look.

[-] SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 years ago

They're taking sides either way. This decision says to me they're taking the side of racists that don't believe black lives matter.

Most companies advertise the support BLM, it's just good marketing. Banning BLM is the opposite of this. It's not a good business decisions. They've lost me as a customer, and I don't think I'm all that special.

Not a good business move.

[-] Lowered_lifted@beehaw.org 6 points 2 years ago

It's not actually a problematic political stance to state that Black Lives Matter, it's unambiguously good, whereas the other things you mention are hate speech, hope that helps.