Stop me if you have heard this before: "Conservative companies fire poor and minority workers because they ask for more money." There is a modicum of truth here, when you strip away the identity politics, but that is not the really bad part of these laws. The worst parts are just now coming into view as the left has learned to use right to work as a club to cut out political voices in the work place that they disagree with.
The above quote is always the charge leveled at conservative states that have enacted right to work laws in response to modern labor union overreach. However, there is a hidden an insidious side of right to work that is just now coming to light as these liberal companies who embrace DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) are beginning to fire employees who do not meet their "standards of inclusivity." Not surprisingly, these target conservative individuals who do not embrace their acceptance of non-traditional lifestyles as acceptable and normal.
I will give you two recent stories to highlight what I am talking about, and I am sure that people could add to it. By the way, feel free to do so in the comments below.
I have a friend who had worked for a company for 19 years. He was old enough for early retirement, but not full retirement, and he had been toying with the idea of taking his retirement early to begin a different full time career that he would need the extra income for. His company, however, talked him into staying an additional two years because his boss and he were friends.
Yet, when that boss retired after 30 years with the company, the new boss who came in was a very liberal person who made DEI a major focal point for the company and its policy. This led to a number of head butting sessions between my friend and the new boss, which caused the new boss to dislike him.
Fast forward about six months, and my friend is called into a meeting and is told that he's being fired for bullying, harassment, and creating a hostile working environment. He asked to see the evidence against him, to hear or read the testimony provided against him, and asked why he did not get to speak in his own defense. The answer? "We do not have to provide you with any of those things because Texas is a right to work state and we can fire you for any reason or no reason at all, and we are not required to give you anything."
Just like that, my friend, who had given 21 years of his life to his company, was summarily fired with not even a chance to defend himself. Yet when he went to a labor lawyer he was told that they were 100% correct, and that he had no grounds or standing to bring a lawsuit.
They took out one of the most conservative people in their employment without so much as a factually backed up reason.
Similarly, another person I know, who lives in a midwestern right to work conservative state and worked for a major US Corporation, was let go after almost ten years with their company after being accused of "bullying, harassment, hostile work environment, and lack of inclusivity." Almost the exact same scenario.
The kicker? The employee who reported them had been documented by this person repeatedly for not doing their job and the corporate HR had backed this person repeatedly in their writing up of the employee. Yet when the employee complained, the HR department threw this person under the bus to save itself from a lawsuit and when this person went to examine the laws, they found that the company was being truthful when they said that they did not have to provide any evidence, statements, or give them a right to defend themselves.
It was a right to work state, after all, where workers can be fired for "any reason, or no reason at all."
So, what we find ourselves with is a scenario where the liberal DEI activists have hijacked what was intended to be a protection of workers from force union membership, and have turned it into a cudgel with which they can beat all of the conservatives, who dare to state their views, out of their workplace to create their echo chamber DEI safe zones.
Where is the ACLU? Where are the labor lawyers who sue big corporations for firing people for "no reason?" Where are the leftist politicians who should attempt to redress this new abuse of power by modifying the laws to give workers some protection against these woke companies?
Simple. They are not interested in taking up the cause because they have no principle. They want the liberal agenda to progress, so they will actively engage in hypocrisy because they are not the party that cares about core morality, to them the ends fully justify the means.
Our Conservative politicians need to wake up to this new threat before it is too late.
It might already be.
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