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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 3 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 2 points 2 years ago

A company not wanting it's employees to wear politicized materials while at work is what makes you mad? I suppose you also want them to be able to wear rebel flag or SS masks? A Trump facemask with MAGA on it? Maybe you just read the title?

[-] michaelrose@lemmy.ml 3 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?

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[-] jasondj@ttrpg.network 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

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.

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

That idea has no bearing on reality, you likely support many businesses owned by right wing assholes indirectly just by living somewhere that doesn't use 100% renewable energy for all of its power needs, for example, and so do I, you can't really help it. Corporations are people under US law and they have been doing political speech under that regime in the form of unlimited spending for over a decade. If Amazon actually believes that black lives matter they should indeed say it. False neutrality and saying that black lives matter is too political a stance for them to want to take is a stance in itself.

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