WordPress retaliation impacts community

> Mullenweg had also asked Automattic employees to pick a side, shortly after banning WP Engine from WordPress.org. He wrote on October 3 that Automattic had extended an ""Alignment Offer"" to its employees. The company provided a buyout package of $30,000 or six months of salary (whichever was higher) to employees who wanted to leave because they disagreed with Mullenweg's actions. Employees who accepted the buyout were immediately terminated and are not eligible for rehire. According to the post, 159 people — 8.4% of the company — accepted the offer.

Hot take: it should be illegal to do these "agree with me or take a silver parachute" deals. This is the CEO blatantly forcing their political views on their workers and purging anyone who has a different opinion and wants to speak it.

And yes, just for completeness sake (and because he's tangentially involved in the Matt drama), that includes DHH's "no politics" rule at 37signals, which (if my fuzzy memory is correct) was also enforced by a similar "agree or parachute" deal. Yes, "no politics" is political, it's stopping the music after claiming a seat in musical chairs.

It's called freedom of association, a foundational principle of capitalism and free markets.

Yup, "my environment is not political" just means "I'm in a comfortable enough situation that most current issues don't affect me and can ignore that they affect others". I don't think it should be illegal. But it sure describes a person.

I suppose he could have Damore’d everyone out instead. Perhaps that is more palatable.

IMO this is different from discriminating based on political opinions because it's the employee who decides whether they want to leave. Similarly, if you build a company and are very vocal on Twitter supporting a presidental candidate, you will probably mostly attract people who support the same — but again, it's the choice of the employee. Very different from asking candidates about who they voted for and then tossing resumés based on that.

It's asymmetric, but laws should generally be in favor of the employees, because the employers already have most of the power on their side.

The offer is setup as a dichotomy but at least in countries with reasonable workplace laws (which perhaps the US isn't) it's a false dichotomy.

There's nothing stopping an employee from simply continuing to disagree with the company direction and also not accepting the offer. In this case, employment goes along as usual and you can continue to disagree with the direction. With proper workplace laws, a company couldn't fire you in this instance, even if you vocally disagree with what is happening.

When an unreasonable choice is attempted to be forced onto you, sometimes the best approach is to ignore it and continue on as usual.

Work is for working. You work towards the goals of the org or you gtfo. I think these policies are great.

The org can ignore the needs of employees at its own peril.

Within limits. Because it also allows all sorts discrimination against folks that as a society we have decided not to allow. The question then becomes where to draw the line, not allegiance to the principle at all cost.

In this case though, the “discrimination” is against people who don’t want to work for the company by offering them 6 months’ salary to no longer work for the company. I don’t really see how that really falls under discrimination.

You're right that there are limits (just as there are limits on free speech), and I don't think any sensible person is advocating for freedom of association on the basis of religion/race/gender. The original comment was proposing that merely holding an ideological position should afford some sort of legal protection - this is akin to firing someone for political affiliations, which is allowable in most cases for private enterprise, with greater latitude for political activity afforded to government employees.