> But to others, "politics at work" means "are we paying women and men the same for doing the same job?" and "are our recruiting practices leading to a non-diverse workforce and missing out on great people who should work here?" and "what problems does our company sole, and for whom?". These are really important questions. Why wouldn't you want to bring them up at work?

I don't understand why would any company want employees to openly discuss "are we paying women and men the same for doing the same job?" This is a terrible question for any specific company to answer. Calculate the average wage of male and female employees? Very likely it won't be equal. And run regression to control different variables (experiences, skills)? If this is not inviting unnecessary internal fight, I can't think of anything else. Not any sane person would want to do this its own company.

"are our recruiting practices leading to a non-diverse workforce and missing out on great people who should work here?" Same spirit, if you don't believe it, nobody can prove it.

"what problems does our company sole, and for whom?" not sure what's the point here.