Amazon.com’s Whole Foods Market doesn’t want to be forced to let workers wear “Black Lives Matter” masks and is pointing to the recent US Supreme Court ruling permitting a business owner to refuse services to same-sex couples to get federal regulators to back off.

National Labor Relations Board prosecutors have accused the grocer of stifling worker rights by banning staff from wearing BLM masks or pins on the job. The company countered in a filing that its own rights are being violated if it’s forced to allow BLM slogans to be worn with Whole Foods uniforms.

Amazon is the most prominent company to use the high court’s June ruling that a Christian web designer was free to refuse to design sites for gay weddings, saying the case “provides a clear roadmap” to throw out the NLRB’s complaint.

The dispute is one of several in which labor board officials are considering what counts as legally-protected, work-related communication and activism on the job.

    • Kittenstix@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      They aren’t banning masks that say “equal rights and fair treatment for ALL” , they are banning BLM masks, BLM is a political movement/organization.

      • shiveyarbles@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        No BLM is a statement that black lives matter. That’s completely different from saying, for instance, blue lives matter. One is a race that people are born into and the other is a job. It’s not political, it’s a cry for help.

      • Juno@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        Ya it’s a political movement that wants cops to stop killing black people.