Amazon.comās Whole Foods Market doesnāt want to be forced to let workers wear āBlack Lives Matterā 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 itās forced to allow BLM slogans to be worn with Whole Foods uniforms.
Amazon is the most prominent company to use the high courtās June ruling that a Christian web designer was free to refuse to design sites for gay weddings, saying the case āprovides a clear roadmapā to throw out the NLRBās 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.
If someone had a necklace with a cross on it, can Amazon ban it? Should they ban it?
How about non-religious ear rings or other jewelry? How about a hair bun? Wedding ring?
Thereās generally some leeway given for cultural adornments. So the question is what specifically is bad about a BLM adornment?
Yes, but not āBanā but make ānot visibleā. Things that cannot be banned are required religious symbols. Think Yarmulca or the Sikh turban (sorry I donāt know the proper name). Where the religion requires wear. The cross can simply be worn under the shirt and not be visible. Dress code is all about visibility. You wonāt find a dress code that mandates undergarments for example. There is of course caveats with some jobs where wearing of the item presents an actual safety riskā¦ Eg necklack falls out of the shirt and gets caught in machinery and now thereās a bloody mess all over the floor. But even with protected items like a turban, if it displayed logos the company would probably be in the right to ask you to change into a different turban that was more neutral.
Yesā¦ Iāve worked in places that had such rules. A simple example would be the military. Iāve not seen Wedding ring restrictionā¦ but can think of several cases where that would be reasonable to also limit. Lots of people willingly stopped wearing their wedding bands in my motorpool after someone degloved a fingerā¦ I have seen plenty of places that ask people to remove other piercings/jewelry and it was a non-issue.
If theyāre applying the policy fairlyā¦ which according to the court case findings they are/didā¦ And that policy was effectively āno logosāā¦ Then everything youāve mentioned doesnāt fall within the policy. I donāt think Iāve ever seen a wedding ring with a Mountain Dew logo on it (like articles of clothing).
Hereās a rendition of the general policy per a thread from 2 years ago https://www.reddit.com/r/wholefoods/comments/nxgnje/whats_the_dress_code/
Similar codes published by other users at https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Whole-Foods-Market/faq/what-is-the-dress-code?quid=1bk0o1sch5n8v93m in 2020. Itās a quick google search to find more references if youād like.
Nothing here would limit religious garb, rings or other jewelry, and Iām sure some other section would cover hair than the one that was furnished. Requiring a bun or other hair style for longer hair makes sense for anyone dealing with food, so at face value not illogical to see. So Iām not sure why youāre bringing all this up. Could a company require compliance with these things? Sureā¦ If you want to be paid to work, you follow the rules. Otherwise, go find another job elsewhere. Itās like trying to work for a high end upscale restaurantā¦ then being mad that you have to wear a suit.
Iām bringing it up because the rules are inconsistent. A wedding ring is a cultural adornment. Itās allowed except in scenarios that involves using machinery that it would be a health hazard.
So we have many cultural adornments allowed, except this one particular one. So itās not āthe rules are the rulesā kind of scenario. There is a specific reason why the BLM masks are being singled out.
Masks are allowed. Similar to a hair scrunchy or hair clip itās something the company should prefer the employees to wear because it improves safety.
Does having BLM on the mask make it a safety concern? Nope, it doesnāt. The mask improves safety having a mask that the employee likes wearing makes it more likely theyāll wear it, so allowing BLM masks is encouraging better safety.
And whatās the reason? The far right has deemed a cultural item to be undesirable. Why would a political movement deem a cultural adornment often worn by a certain ethnicity to be undesirable?
Sorry but logic just isnāt on your side with this one. Itās discouraging a commonly accepted cultural adornment thatās being done solely out of political motivations of the employer. Other cultural adornments are allowed (some are even encouraged when they improve safety) but this particular adornment is being singled out despite the fact that it improves safety. The BLM masks are only considered political speech by a subset of the population who are of a certain political persuasion.
Itās a politically motivated attack against cultural expression, ie. culture war bullshit. Am I meant to not notice that thereās one political party is promoting this āculture warā crap and pretend the actions of Amazon arenāt politcal while some underpaid worker wearing a BLM mask isnāt cultural?
Not at allā¦ Itās not breaking the rule because the rule isnāt āno cultural adornmentā ā¦ Itās no brands or logos.
Why do I have to keep fucking repeating this on every damn thread?
BLM is not trademarked (people have tried and failed though!) so itās not a brand. Itās three letters so it doesnāt qualify as a logo. If it were consistently stylized then maybe it could be considered a logo. But thereās not consistency in the stylization, only thing thatās consistent is itās the same three letters from the alphabet in the same order.
LOL <- do you think thatās a logo too? If so then, LOL at your silly rationalization. Oh noes, someone might sue me for infringing on the āLOLā brand/logo!
Now youāre assuming what the actual design of the pin and mask wereā¦ Do you know it was just āBLMāā¦ and why wouldnāt that count as a brand/logo? Just because itās not trademarked itās not a logo? Thatās silly and certainly not a consideration for what is and isnāt a logo. There are many masks and pins that are absolutely stylized. But I have no idea which these people were wearing so I wonāt speak to that.
LOL can be a logo. But I find myself again pointing to the rules that Whole Foods have in placeā¦
āplainā, āone colorā, and NO pinsā¦ These things are obvious and clear words that donāt leave imagination to the intention of management. Even if it was just the letters BLM put together in a neutral fontā¦ itās still a violation of the contract you would have agreed to in order to work there. If you have no intention of following the rules, then donāt work thereā¦ and certainly donāt āsurprise pikachuā when you get fired.
But even to just the point of what a logo isā¦
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/logo
2: an identifying symbol (as for use in advertising) 3: an identifying statement : motto
We could argue that BLM meets or doesnāt meet requirement for definition 2ā¦ But it DEFINITELY meets definition 3. BLM just on itās own is 1 of 2 thingsā¦ Bureau of Land Management, or āBlack Lives Matterā (whether the non-profit or the movement). Itās definitely identifying because nobody is wearing a Bureau of Land Management mask or pin.
Jesus youāre down to the third definition in one dictionary. Iāve seen some weak ass internet lawyering in my time but holy shit.
Why not just be honest about things? Youāve gotten convinced by right wing political narratives about what BLM is and because of culture war politics you want to repress this cultural artifact?
So this is just a political faction using fear and intimidation to repress culture. Go ahead with your silly āthe rules are the rulesā bullshit, but itās obvious that many cultural adornments are considered acceptable by Amazon except this particular one because theyāre afraid of a violent political faction or are perhaps in agreement with that political faction. Either way itās a political faction repressing culture, ie. Culture War. Itās not even like anyoneās subtle about their motives in all of this. Why are you trying so hard to be?
If you believe that the rule is being applied unfairly, then you might want to reach out to the lawyers that took the case to courtā¦ You know since the case was readily dismissed they might want your legal insight. Maybe theyāll sign you on as partner!
Orā¦ Itās as simple as it seems. The employee broke the policyā¦ and was fired for cause after failing to remedy.
Ah yesā¦ the MAGA losers turned me! That must be it. Not that I know how to read policies before I start working for a companyā¦ or actively participate in my job in a meaningful way.
Sighā¦ I swear this was already coveredā¦ Nothing with logos/branding. Just because you find value in it doesnāt make it appropriate.
The workplace isnāt the place to have your āculture warā. If you want to āwarā at workā¦ donāt be surprised when you get fired.
Edit: The sad part about all of thisā¦ I fucking HATE Bezos/Amazon. But youāre all so fucking stuck on this shit that you think Iām defending them. Iām not. I wish them to fail in the most spectacular way possible. But really? Weāre all up and arms about a fucking dress code? Seriously? fucking 20 years ago I was bussing tables at a steakhouse and guess whatā¦ There was a fucking dress code. This isnāt something new.
Youāve got some is/ought fallacy going on here. And itās unfortunate. But Iām not sure if comparing something as culturally ubiquitous as a wedding ring compares to something as divisive as BLM. Yes, itās unfortunate that BLM is divisive. It ought not be. Yes, you could even say wedding rings are symbols of power and oppression, and ought be considered in the same way as BLM. But that is not the case.
Wedding rings are symbols of power and oppression.
I just said that. If you disagree then that means wedding rings are a divisive issue. Since itās a divisive issue it should be banned.
Youāre using tautological logic here. Anything thatās divisive is political, anyone declaring they disagree with anything makes something divisive, therefore anything people disagree over is political. Anything political should be banned. All power is given to those who decide what is political and what isnāt because anything can be declared political.
Given weāre in a culture where people will feign disagreement and argue in bad faith, the logical result is employers have absolute control over employees. Starting to feel really dystopian if we follow this kind of logic.
Honestly do you really think there is no intent behind the culture war strategy of declaring anything associated with minority groups to be ādivisiveā in an effort to have it banned? Who actually believes black lives donāt matter? Should anyone try to appease that sort of person?