> Why should I not bring my politics to work? Isn't bringing politics to work what got us the 40 hour work week and the weekend?
There are different kinds of politics. There's the old saying "never discuss politics or religion at the dinner table," and I think the "politics" there are the kind that are more akin to religious belief: beliefs that are strongly held, where compromise is difficult or impossible, and have big emotional components. An example are the big divisive social issues, talk about figurehead politicians, or touchy current events. For these topics, there's a high likelihood that a bitter argument or fight will break out if they come up in mixed company.
I think the politics or worker-organization among peers are totally different and very appropriate for the workplace. There's going to be a level of solidarity between the people discussing them that encourages empathy, and actual social good can come from the discussion.
Even for the politics that "got us the 40 hour work week and the weekend", I think the integration is problematic. Essentially Facebook has traditionally been a social network first, and many people's Facebook activity feed reflect more what they do "off hours" and are more conversational in nature. It is relatively easy to skim profile feeds (entire histories of data), and it just seems like it isn't a big step to imagine nefarious employers running sentiment analysis on Facebook timelines just to eliminate characteristics they don't like... including characteristics it is illegal to discriminate against now.
For instance, in the politics that "got us the 40 hour work week and the weekend" it is illegal to overtly not hire someone just because they expressed sympathetic pro-union views (https://www.nlrb.gov/rights-we-protect/whats-law/employers/d...). But what stops an employer with direct links to a profile from running analysis on posts exactly for that? Such a thing it seems would be hard to detect.
Oh, I totally agree, this is a terrible, terrible feature for Facebook to implement and push. People's Facebook profiles are going to bring in all the divisive kind of politics and little of the worker-solidarity type.
You also make a good point about this enabling deniable illegality in the hiring process.
I was just only trying to clarify the kinds of politics that belong at work and the kind that doesn't in my comment, with little to no reference to the Facebook angle of the OP.
Sure, I agree with your implication there, but you never know what peer-worker has goals of becoming your manager and in the case of labor organization, might benefit from informing mangers/owners of peer-worker organization. What are we left to do then?
The feelings underlying my comments here are that I think it's important to not shy away from divisive topics in the workplace. OpSec only goes so far. At some point we must take risks to create a better future and creating an environment that nurtures open and honest discussion, even if divisive.
> The feelings underlying my comments here are that I think it's important to not shy away from divisive topics in the workplace.
I agree conditionally, since there isn't one kind of "divisive" topic. Some kinds should be avoided, which are the ones people usually are talking about when they say politics should be avoided the workplace. The main thing that comes from them are disruption, polarization, and nasty feelings. Other kinds, like ones that are "divisive" between workers and owners, should be tolerated or even encouraged, since they are appropriate to the context and can lead to genuine improvement within it.
Maybe divisive politics would be an adequate qualifier? Workers’ rights don’t generally relate to people’s self-identities the way issues like Church vs State do, for example.
