Political Talk and Incivility at Work

In April 2024, Google fired 28 employees for protesting the company’s contract to provide the Israeli government and military with cloud computing and artificial intelligence services. The protests, led by the No Tech For Apartheid organization, focused on Project Nimbus — Google and Amazon’s joint $1.2 billion contract to provide the Israeli government and military with cloud computing services, including AI tools, data centers, and other cloud infrastructure.

With the election coming up, what are the implications of expressing political opinions at work? What are our rights, and when does freedom of speech cross the line to incivility?

According to Dennis Davis, director of client training for Ogletree Deakins, data shows there’s a lot of political talk happening at work, and most people wish there wasn’t. “That tells me that workers are looking for direction and cover from HR to set some rules,” he says.

Speech is Not Free

Employees regularly cite the freedom of speech enshrined in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution as a right to say what they please at work, but that’s a misconception according to Joseph Beachboard, the chief employment attorney at Beachboard Consulting Group.

The right to freedom of speech is limited at work. Unless you work for the government, you don’t have a First Amendment right in the workplace. There are certain prohibitions on employers’ limitations on speech, such as interfering with someone’s ability to vote and trying to coerce employees or provide incentives to vote a certain way. Harassment, threats, anything deemed sexist or racist, or that violates another protected category are not covered by the First Amendment.

Beachboard added that although federal equal employment opportunity (EEO) laws do not cover political affiliation as a protected category, these types of discussions can cross over to areas that raise EEO issues, such as race or sex.

The majority of Black, LGBTQ+, Latinx, Asian, and Women vote blue according to the new Pew Research Center survey. Employers must manage the tension within what EEO laws state about intervening if discussions raise issues associated with protected categories.