Sure, it’s bullshit, but why should bullshit be illegal? Especially if it’s bullshit taking place on private property.
It’s pretty irrelevant that the guns were stored in accordance with state laws. It’s not public property so if the company had a rule that no guns were allowed on the property, then that rule should be respected. There are a lot of things that are legal in the state I own property in, but I don’t want all of those things taking place on that property. I have the right to define what type of activity takes place there. I can even choose to make bullshit rules if I want. No state law should interefere with that.
Yep. You guys are right. I retract my earlier statement.
The companies are being assholes for firing workers for having a damn muzzle loader in their car on the first day of hunting season. I sure hope the NRA beats the shit out of them for that. I also hope that they successfully boycott companies with such practices. However, the law proposed in Oklahoma does seem to be overreaching. They can do whatever they like on public property, including banning guns.
I wonder if the company had a policy about firearms and if this policy was made available to the workers prior to them getting fired. I’d think that if not, they would have a strong case to collect unemployment from the company. Otherwise any company could just invent a stupid policy and then use it to lay off workers without having to pay. Fire all the workers with red cars, for example.
Yeah, but I’m trying to think of this as a rights issue. I know that if it were a freedom-of-speech issue, for example, I’d resent an employer’s trying to lean on employees even if they had a legal right to do so. E.g., that employer who fired a worker whose car had a political bumpersticker that he found ideologically distasteful. I may agree that the employer is legally entitled to do something like that but personally I still find it pretty damn oppressive. The argument would be that an individual’s exercising his/her fundamental constitutional right is just as important, or more important, than the employer’s maintaining absolute control over whatever happens on his/her property.
So, is this case essentially the same thing? I’m not sure. The First Amendment protects freedom of speech, which definitely applies to a political bumpersticker, IMO. And the Second Amendment is said to guarantee the right to bear arms because “a well-regulated militia” is “necessary to the security of a free State”. But the gun-bearers in this case had no Second-Amendment-related motives: they just wanted to get in a little recreation on the way to or from work.
I don’t have a clear sense yet of why this bugs me, but somehow it feels as though the NRA is trying to have it both ways at once. They want to argue that there’s nothing wrong with bringing these guns onto someone else’s private property because they’re intended for purely recreational, personal, harmless purposes. And at the same time they want to argue that it’s ethically wrong and anti-liberty to ban guns from the private property because they’re so crucially constitutionally important for state security purposes.
Something about that doesn’t add up right to me, but maybe it’s just because it’s late and I’m tired. 'Night.
How 'bout drugs? You okay with your company searching your car for dope? And then firing if they find a roach in the ashtray? Whether or not you’re stoned at the the office?
The idea of corporate personhood is repellant. But given that it has prevailed, why should the company’s property rights supercede a person’s property right to their vehicle? What gives the company authority to search a private vehicle? Why have the masses assented to give companies authority over their private lives? Why are so many of us willing to become serfs?
This developing serfdom inspired me to start a thread on a different board
Another example is from a case debated here where a business owner set about to fire people who smoked AWAY from work.
It’s insane that we allow people to own us outside of our employment. They pay us to do a job. They don’t buy our free time, our freedom or our minds.
Or how 'bout something legal? Say you stopped at the liquor store on your lunch hour to pick up a bottle of The McCallan to drink in the evening. That afternoon, some guy who had a beer at lunch gets hurt out on the plant floor. And the company decides they have a “zero tolerance” policy about alcohol on their property; they head out and using coercive tactics make you open up your car for a search. They find your McCallan in box in a bag with the paper seal on the neck of the bottle intact; it’s obvious it hasn’t been opened. And they shitcan you for it after 22 years of service.
Sounds like things worked out. They got their jobs back. The employer certainly has the right to decide if weapons should be on their property. Still, since the policy was new, they should have given warnings for early offenses. Certainly the policy should have been better publicized. Seems like a simple sign at the entrance to the lot would have saved everyone a heap of trouble. Much ado over darn little.
The company has the authority to search a private vehicle because that vehicle is on company property. Furthermore, said company has a rule that no weapons can be brought on its property. Therefore, the company is perfectly justified in enforcing that rule. Don’t like it? Then either park off company property, get a new job, or try to get the rule changed. You assent to give the company authority over what you bring on its property by agreeing to work for them.
No, you contract with a company to provide a certain service. In return, they pay you. As part of that contract you agree to do certain things. If you are in breach of that, you should be fired. At this certain company, you agreed not to bring a gun on their property. You violated that agreement. You get fired.
Unclebeer, if your hypothetical company has a policy that you can’t have drugs or beer at work and you violate it, then you should be fired.
Lemme get this straight: You good, conservative Republicans are saying that NOT ONLY a company should NOT have the right to say what they want on their property BUT ALSO, though Weyerhauser is the company that did the firings, Conoco should be driven out of business because they support the right of companies to make their own rules? Is that what you’re saying? I ask because it sure doesn’t sound like something good, conservative Republicans would say.
Unless a firm conducts vehicle searches of all persons coming into a company lot on a continuing basis, a no-gun rule will be ineffectual in stopping workplace shootings. People who want to go on a rampage at work are not going to stop and think, “Gee, they’ll fire me if they catch me with a rifle in the trunk. I better not do that.”
“Sen. Shurden recently told the online edition of the Ardmorite, “A lot of these businesses have late-night shifts, and these employees are subject to being violated by any type of predator that may be armed.” They should be able to defend themselves from violent criminals.”
Connecting this to personal security seems to be a stretch. If you’re accosted in the lot or on the way home, what do you do? Tell the mugger or car hijacker to back off, you’ve got a locked gun in the trunk?
Besides, that comment about “subject to being violated by any type of predator” makes me wonder if Sen. Shurden is worried about the possibility of workers being molested by hormonally overcharged raccoons. :dubious:
Incidentally, I nominate “The Ardmorite” for inclusion on the list of Top Ten Most Half-Assed Newspaper Names.
UncleBeer, I have worked at jobs where, as a condition of my employment, I signed a paper stating that this, and more, would be okay with me. And this is in New York, for god’s sake. If these guys don’t have a union, or at least a clearly defined contract, I don’t know what they’re objecting to. I used to bitch about stuff like this, but I eventually got sick of it. Your employer can subject you to hourly anal probes if they want to and the vast majority of peple are just happy to be working.
You’re a good serf, then. Just how much leeway are you willing to allow companies? Is it reasonable for them to demand that you drive a Ford and no other vehicle onto their lot? Can they limit your eating eggs because they think they’ll give you bad gas? Can they demand that you part your hair on the left? Rules should meet a reasonable standard of being related to the business, not some arbitrary bullshit. If what I do on my own time doesn’t affect my performance, then it’s none of my boss’ damned business if I want to smoke a joint or drink a fifth.
You know, it looks to me like a lot of people on both sides of the political aisle have flip-flopped relative to the views expressed in the “employee fired for having Kerry bumpersticker” thread. I suppose it’s possible that there’s not much overlap in posters between this thread and that one, but the left/right split was skewed in completely the other direction in that one.
Me, I think in both cases it’s a scummy thing for a company to fire employees for what’s in/on their cars, unless it can cite a damn good reason for the policy.
Well, that wouldn’t be me. I’ve been saying that this is happening for years. As long as they can walk up and excort you off to the can, and make you make for them, they can asert the perogative to require all sorts of lesser indignities.
While I’m not a fan of the employer’s behavior, Oklahoma is an “Employment-at-Will” state, and the people who’ve recently been fighting to keep it that way are fairly likely to be the same people who typically support the NRA. Sometimes life is funny like that.
By the way, the NRA is also an Employment-at-Will employer.
