Garrison Law partner Josh Goodbaum was recently quoted in a Wall Street Journal article about politics in the workplace.
The article, entitled “It’s Getting Harder for Companies to Keep Politics Out of the Workplace,” discussed the efforts of some business owners to maintain political neutrality in their workplaces as the presidential election approaches. Some managers are asking employees to refrain from engaging in conversations about politics on company messaging systems such as Slack. Others are preemptively moderating such discussions by adding more Human Resources staff and expanding de-escalation training programs.
However, these measures leave many employees questioning their level of freedom in the workplace, regardless of their views. Although employees around the country enjoy limited protections for freedom of speech in the workplace, private-sector workers generally are not covered by the First Amendment.
In Connecticut, however, all employees – whether employed by the government or a private business – are protected from being disciplined or terminated for expressing their political opinions. Asked about the political valiance of Connecticut’s employment law, Josh said, “I don’t see this issue as a liberal versus conservative one. I see this more as an issue of personal freedom. How much freedom do we sacrifice by working in the private sector?”
Josh added that the problem doesn’t just lie with an employee being able to share their views, but also with their ability to accept the views of others. He said, “With increasing social and political polarization, I think we’re seeing people have more and more trouble working with and coexisting with people who have fundamentally different political positions.”
You can read the full piece here.