FYI: If you say you don't care about politics and you ban political speech in your workspace - that on its own is a political statement that you're fine with the status quo.
The costs outweigh the benefits to you, probably because the status quo is pretty favorable to you. This may not hold for other people, except now they're gagged from doing anything about it.
No, that doesn't follow from "not at work". You can engage in political activism outside work, even if somebody from the same company is active on the other side. Both of you are asked to not turn work into the battle ground however.
I disagree. There are a variety of reasons to prohibit political speech in the workplace even if one desires to change the status quo:
* A company might find that it's employees become toxic when political disagreements happen.
* A company might find itself alienating people with minority viewpoints.
* A company may find itself losing customers because political views discussed in the workplace is attributed to the company.
This mentality that lack of political discussion in the workplace implies agreement with the status quo has negative consequences, and makes employees feel pressured to voice support for things they don't actually support in order to avoid losing face with coworkers.
There are many places and times that people do not want to discuss the politics of the outside world. Examples could include while giving birth, while shopping alone at the grocery store, while sitting alone on a city bus, while performing surgery, while discussing your raise with your boss.
Just because someone does not want to discuss something here and now, doesn't invalidate that they have original opinions. Not everything is a dichotomy all the time. Plenty of people who are not fine with the status quo don't want to discuss it at work.
Which toilet (if any) I use is political. Being dressed as myself is a political statement. My right to have documentation that matches me is political. Whether or not I can be fired for being myself is political. So since one side has decided to make my very existence political then I think I have the right to talk about it. If you don’t want me talking about it at work then convince the GOP to stop trying to take away my rights, women’s rights, and so on. Until then tough cookies.
This reply is an example of exactly why people don't want to discuss things like this at work. People rarely want to have such a combative discussion with our coworkers, especially when framed as an all-or-nothing, very high stakes conversation.
If these issues, such as where you use the toilet, what you wear to work, what documentation you are provided, are relevant to your work-place, I would suggest that they are not "political" topics, but instead workplace topics and could, and should, be broached. However, I don't know GitLab's stance on this.
That being said, I do agree with you that all of these things are political, as well as who is causing the issues. However, your coworkers might not, and there might be very good reasons to continue to work with such people.
Which status quo? Say what your interpretation of the "status quo" is, and I'll read it as a political statement. Say that you shouldn't accept it, and I'll read that as a political statement too.
Is it? You can not be fine with the status quo but still have a multitude of reasons to ban political speech in your workspace:
- you think political speech isn't useful for changing the status quo
- you think the political speech that will probably take place will lead to a world worse than the status quo, in the opposite direction of which you want it to go (this doesn't just mean "I think my coworkers are of the wrong party" but also "I think the world should be less politically divided")
- you think political speech will change the world for the better, but you also just hate political speech even more than you hate the status quo
> The workplace is an extension of the society it exists it.
The workplace is a place for getting work done. Arguing about politics is not getting work done. Unless your workplace is Congress, I guess, although they seem to argue a lot but don't get any work done.
When I see people saying things like "everything is political so politics is part of the workplace", I translate that as "I would rather argue about politics than be productive". Or, alternatively, "I would rather argue about how other people should use their time and energy and money, than actually do the hard work of using my own".
The workplace has always been an extension of society. Humans are not robots and what's happening in society will impact how they work somewhere.
Trump making it harder for h1bs to get citizenship will impact how h1b workers feel in the company.
Supreme Court deciding on if abortion should remain legal or not will impact a lot of people in their workplace.
I'm sorry, but you seem like the type of person who knows the country isnt going to drastically make it harder to live for them. It's easy for people in that position to see work as...just work.
If that's not the case with you I apologize. But what happens with politics 100 percent impacts me at work and I should be able to talk about it.
> what happens with politics 100 percent impacts me at work and I should be able to talk about it
What happens with politics impacts me at work too, but my response is not to spend time talking about it at work. My response at work is to make my work valuable to my employer. My response outside of work is none of my employer's business.
Not really, though - the “status quo” at the moment is that everybody should shun U.S. government agencies, whereas gitlab appears to be taking the exact opposite stance; that is, bucking popular opinion.
