Yes, in just about any Western jurisdiction that isn't the US. The degree of loyalty expected from a rank-and-file employee is not very high. If you're a high-level executive it's different. Great power, great responsibility and so on.

Here’s my take. If I think a company is doing wrong and I believe I should stand against it, I would then consider that taking a stand will likely result in termination; but if I believe strongly then I’d do it because of principle not be cause a law is protecting me.

That’s not to say I disagree with workers’ protections only tat if you believe strongly then protections or not should not be much of a consideration.

That said, is Amazon acting illegally so you’re calling that out or do I just disagree with their position?

I agree, but I should not be surprised if they terminated me because of it.

Maybe not surprised, but morally outraged certainly

I’m not sure. Let’s say me and my neighbor borrow things from each other and have an okay relationship. Maybe some time later they think I underpaid them for a used car when they find out I sold it for double the price. They don’t talk to me and we’re not friends any longer.

Do I get outraged at them? Should they be outraged at me? Did anyone of us do anything illegal?

I agree with you. Amazon, should though, be aware of the Streisand effect. They are amplifying their problem by firing people instead of, say...reprimanding them.

> Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) said on Tuesday it terminated two employees, who criticized the working conditions

It doesn't sound like Amazon is attempting to hide anything here.

By firing them, they are reinforcing the idea they they don't care about working conditions. A reprimand likely wouldn't have made the news.

I assume they want less buzz about work conditions.

The Streisand effect is when someone actively takes actions to hide information, but it backfires. I haven't seen any evidence of them taking actions to hide any information.

>I assume they want less buzz about work conditions.

I don't think this is the case. They have been public about responding to the media and have been posting daily updates through their own site. The link to their blog discussing workers' conditions is on the front page of Amazon.com.

Firing outspoken employees counts as an attempt to suppress information to me. The firing itself becoming news is the backfire. They essentially gave the warehouse conditions an extra news cycle.

We may be missing information here, but I am not sure these employees even had any first-hand information to suppress. I went to their twitter pages and couldn't find any myself.

It doesn't matter whether they had any actual info. It's the perception. Firing them feeds it further.

The power imbalance makes it easy for Amazon to act like this. Even if they get sued and lose, they have billions. It's like when Google got fined by the EU, and it was just a day's profit. Amazon is a shredder; so large that it just wipes out swaths of businesses, leaving broken employees in its wake.

Such policies are facially illegal under the National Labor Relations Act, which guarantees workers the right to engaged in protected concerted activity, such as discussing their working conditions with eachother, the press, and the public. The tweets that got these two fired were explicitly about working conditions.

Google had a similar policy and, after losing NLRA cases, had to issue a notice to all employees saying that its previous policies no longer included discussing working conditions with the public.

Amazon will likely get sued over this, and very likely lose in a similar matter, as their conduct here is even more egregious.

IANAL, but all I know of the National Labor Relations Act pertains to unions and collective bargaining. These were UX designers, far detached from warehouses, speaking on warehouse conditions.

While warehouse workers could file suit under the National Labor Relations Act if fired for speaking publicly of their own working conditions, I'm not sure that Amazon's UX team would qualify (but again, IANAL).

To draw an analogy: Would a DoorDash engineer be safe speaking out against the working conditions of DoorDash drivers?

> Would a DoorDash engineer be safe speaking out against the working conditions of DoorDash drivers?

They should be, but you might be right that the National Labor Relations Act (or other applicable law) isn't doing its job.

Except they weren't discussing their working conditions. They were discussing other people's working conditions.

Other people who work at the same company. You are attempting to split hairs that the law doesn't have.

Firing designers for complaining about their unsanitary working conditions is illegal. Firing warehouse workers for complaining about their unsanitary working conditions is illegal. Firing designers and warehouse workers for attempting to organize together is illegal.

Firing designers for talking about someone else's working conditions isn't "one weird trick" for avoiding the law here.

> You are attempting to split hairs that the law doesn't have.

You are a lawyer and are making this claim as someone who is educated in labor law? Or you have a citation to share with us, or something of that nature? Perhaps the chapter and verse of the law that makes this move illegal? Or a case where it was found that workers have the right to publicly comment on other workers' working conditions as long as they work at the same company?

This large, friendly notice from the government spells it out explicitly: https://www.dol.gov/olms/regs/compliance/EO_Posters/Employee...

> Under the NLRA, it is illegal for your employer to:

> Fire, demote, or transfer you, or reduce your hours or change your shift, or otherwise take adverse action against you, or threaten to take any of these actions, because you join or support a union, or because you engage in concerted activity for mutual aid and protection, or because you choose not to engage in any such activity.

You can get a basic overview of this topic by googling things like NLRA, NLRB, and protected concerted activity, including very recent examples of how these concepts have applied. They're much broader protections than you think, and Amazon has very clearly broken them. That's why their spokesman is giving out contradictory statements like saying that they allow employees to discuss eachother's working conditions, then firing them for exactly that.

Do not fall into the trap of thinking that "the company has a policy" or "at-will employment" means "you have no legal rights".

Right, and that poster specifically talks about your working conditions. It says nothing about a protected right to talk about other people's working conditions.

The phrase "mutual aid" is right there. As is "organizing". These things imply an ability to cooperate with coworkers. These laws were made to explicitly protect collective bargaining, which absolutely implies other people.

They imply other people, yes; but mutual implies both sides. If you're only talking about other people's working conditions and never talking about your own, there's nothing mutual going on.

They weren't discussing their working conditions.