Brendan Eich has a helpful chart of Compensation of Highest paid executive at Mozilla vs Firefox market share over time.
https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1217512049716035584/p...
replies(8):
https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1217512049716035584/p...
It is also not censorship nor is it illegal to terminate employment with someone based on their political actions.
It is in California: https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/legal-and-compliance/...
From your article:
>On the contrary, political beliefs or views are not a specifically protected category under California's discrimination laws. Nothing in either of the two labor code provisions above directly addresses discrimination or retaliation on the basis of expressed political views. Nor does the First Amendment serve to provide any further guidance. With limited exceptions, the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of "freedom of speech" applies only to government action and not private employers/employees. The Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 prohibits political affiliation discrimination against federal employees only.
> Mr. Eich’s situation is somewhat analogous to the one addressed in Nava v. Safeway, Inc., an unpublished decision of the California Court of Appeal. There, the court found that an employee had a viable wrongful termination claim because Safeway allegedly fired him for opposing gay marriage. Safeway claimed to have discharged Nava for taking down a sign he considered to be pro-gay. Nava claimed he was fired for his political beliefs.
> Eich therefore likely had the right to contribute to Proposition 8 as a protected political activity.
Being fired for your political actions is entirely legal in at-will employment states like California.
The law you cited does not apply, except to companies that use company policy to _coerce_ political action from employees. Firing someone for their actions does not make it company policy.
Mozilla was not coercing employees to take political action by adding politics into their company policy. Mozilla was saying that for that particular position at their company, the employee's political actions were grounds to be terminated.
I'm not sure how many more ways I can explain this, but that's why what happened is legal, despite the lawyers opinion you googled.
> No employer shall coerce or influence or attempt to coerce or influence his employees through or by means of threat of discharge or loss of employment to adopt or follow or refrain from adopting or following any particular course or line of political action or political activity. [1]
This not only prohibits employers from coercing employers to adopt a particular stance, it also prohibits employers from influencing employees to refrain from adoption or following any lines of politician action or activity.
How could firing an employee for political donations not be considered influencing an employee to refrain from a particular line of political action. Specifically, in Mozilla was influencing employees to refrain from the political action of donating in favor of Proposition 8.
> Mozilla was not coercing employees to take political action by adding politics into their company policy. Mozilla was saying that for that particular position at their company, the employee's political actions were grounds to be terminated.
Again, this is not just about specifically telling employees to support a particular cause in its company policy. Employers coercing employees to refrain from adopting or following political action is prohibited too. And in this case, it is pretty explicit what political action Mozilla was trying to make employees refrain from: donating to Proposition 8.
And again, people that study law say that firing Eich for his donations would have been illegal as I provided above.
1. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio...
> No employer shall coerce or influence or attempt to coerce or influence his employees through or by means of threat of discharge or loss of employment to adopt or follow or refrain from adopting or following any particular course or line of political action or political activity.
You also dodged the question.
> No employer shall coerce or influence or attempt to coerce or influence his employees...
So it's not just coercion, it's prohibiting influence (as well as attempts at either). And it also describes the manner of influence that is prohibited:
> through or by means of threat of discharge or loss of employment.
It is prohibited to influence employees through discharge or loss of employment or through threat of discharge or loss of employment. Both threatening to fire someone and actually firing someone over political activity are prohibited.
And lastly it describes what the employer is prohibited from influencing their employers to or to refrain from doing:
> to adopt or follow or refrain from adopting or following any particular course or line of political action or political activity.
Using the above to get employees to follow a political action to to refrain from following a political action is prohibited.
> You also dodged the question.
Because the question is inane and you know it. My whole point was that both threatening to fire Eich and actually firing Eich for donations violated these protections, so this distinction is irrelevant. But I'll entertain you: threatening to discharge someone over political activity is when an employer threatens and employee to fire someone for taking or refusing to take a political action. Discharging someone over political activity is when they are actually fired.
And now it's my turn to give you an inane question of my own: When the law prohibits both threatening to discharge someone for political activity and actually discharging someone for political activity, is trying to justify firing someone for political actions by saying, "it's okay they actually discharged him for political activity, they didn't threaten to discharge him" an effective approach?