Mozilla lays off 70

That's a lawyer's marketing blog selling his services to sue for wrongful termination. The labor code § 1101 they cite is the same thing: it applies only to employers using threatening to terminate in order to coerce political activity, not actually terminating someone for political actions.

This is an important distinction. It is illegal for an employer to threaten all employees with termination if they do not vote on X, for example. It is not illegal for an employer to terminate an employee for taking a specific political action.

Mozilla did not threaten to terminate in order to coerce action, they terminated for actions already taken place, making it legal.

> it applies only to employers using threatening to terminate in order to coerce political activity, not actually terminating someone for political actions.

So your idea is that it's not okay to threaten to fire an employee over political actions, but it is okay to actually fire someone over political actions? No worker protections protects against both. Read it closely:

> 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.

It prohibits both discharge and threat of discharge. The argument that Mozilla did not threaten to discharge Eich, and thus discharging Eich because of his political activity is not relevant. Both are prohibited.

I didn't make the laws - this is what they are. GP is making the appeal to legality which is wrong in this case.

The law is to prevent employers from extorting all employees into taking political action under threat of termination. Terminating a single employee for their past political actions is different from extorting all employees into action.

> The law is to prevent employers from extorting all employees into taking political action under threat of termination.

Not incorrect, but an incomplete description of these worker protections. It is also prevents employers from threatening employees into refraining from taking political action, "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."

> Terminating a single employee for their past political actions is different from extorting all employees into action.

Terminating an employee for their political action makes it crystal clear to the remaining employees that they need to refrain from that political action if they want to keep their jobs - and that violates worker protections.

Again, you seem to be under the impression that these protections only exist to prevent employers from making their employees carry out a political action. That's not the case, they also prohibit influencing employees from refraining taking political action. Firing an employee from donating to a ballot initiative is a very explicit way to get employees to refrain from donating to said ballot initiative.

And yet again, I as well as other commenters have provided you with analysis from law groups that explain that Mozilla firing Eich over his political donations would have violated these worker protections.

This is becoming ad nauseum. You're missing the point about how the law applies differently to company policy and actions, but my guess is that you desperately want them to be the same hence your repeated arguments and confirmation bias. The lawyer blogs you and another commenter linked to are trying to sell services to sue employers and are not valid analyses.

> This is becoming ad nauseum. You're missing the point about how the law applies differently to company policy and actions

Where are you getting this idea that this law only applies to company "policy". Reread the protections:

> 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.

Where does it say that this is only prohibited by policy? It says "No employer shall..." not "No employer shall implement policy to...". The law does not apply differently to company "policy" versus "actions".