Freedom of speech in the private sector.

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"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

As per the abridgment of freedom of speech, I consider it that private sector employees ought to have the same measure of freedom of speech as public sector employees and that laws permitting business entities to abridge the freedom of speech of their employees are in violation of the First Amendment. Although this is particular to American rights and laws, freedom of speech should be for everyone regardless of what nation they were born within or are citizens of, but it ought to at least be valid within the context of America if nowhere else. Instead, the rights of non-living business entities are treated in a manner so as to outweigh the rights of living human beings - especially those who are overworked and underpaid enough so as to have plenty of grievances to k'vetch about harmlessly, but they can't either on the job or elsewhere because once they are hired their mouths and keyboards become the property of the corporations. Sorry, but I reject that. I am an American citizen and laws in violation of the first amendment ought to be considered nullified.

I agree with you, but you do have to be careful what you say sometimes.

Imagine that you own a small store. Are you going to want to keep an employee who says rude things about you all over town and on the internet? It is more prudent for an employee to pretend to be enthusiastic about you.

After he quits, then he might write a book about how evil you are. However, he shouldn't expect a positive reference from you, if you are contacted by another prospective employer.

Remember Herman Cain's words: "I can't think of a single thing that I would hire that woman to do."

Congress is not your employer. Your employer is not making any laws. You're trying to twist the first amendment to mean something it doesn't. Employment has nothing to do with free speech. You do not have a right to employment. You have the right to say what you want without being imprisoned for it.

The 1st Amendment only applies to public sector employees in a limited fashion. The court cases on the topic are not the easiest to read, but they acknowledge that a public employer does have the right to disipline for some "speech" that would be otherwise protected. The archtypial case is employees making negative comments on Facebook about members of the public.

The reasons the courts give that protection to Public employees is because of the immense power of government acting as an employer, and (occasionally) a general concept that the public deserves good employees, so elected or appointed officials arn't allowed to fire at a whim. Much of the case law grows out of the early civil service laws.

Eh? Employees do have the right to say what they like. Their employer also has the right to fire them if they disagree.

It don't see how that is hard to understand...