| > "1. At-will"
For the most part, this is true. However, it is and has been abused and has its existing exemptions for very good reason. Protecting an employer's right to punish people for lawful activity they engage in outside of the workplace, that has no impact on how they perform their job, does not seem like a very good reason. > "2. harms from exceptions have overwhelmed the benefits"
You're conflating union contracts with legal protections. Also, we shouldn't overlook the ways in which employers would use their at-will rights to control employee voting, spending (company store) and living (company housing). Beneficial protections for employees from the at-will rights of employers go beyond the handful of explicit protected classes. > "3. To these 5 protected classes we should add "pot smoker"?"
No more than we should add "alcohol drinker". But it absolutely shouldn't be a protected right to fire people for engaging in lawful behavior that occurs outside the workplace and has no impact on their job performance. > "4. "protected class" is code for "excuse to get sued"."
Termination is pretty clean and easy so long as you document your decisions. > "5. Existing policies unlawful"
I believe the correct interpretation there is the specific sections would be rendered invalid/unenforceable and would need to be amended. I don't see it as such a huge deal. The very organizations that would experience a large cost in this endeavor are overwhelmingly the ones who have annual updates anyway. > "6. CA quirk."
But we're only talking about California. It's nonsensical to argue based on interstate applicability of a proposed State law. > "7. That quirk isn't settled in case law and may only apply to cases where companies try to suppress political speech or invade privacy."
Or it may not. Or firing people based on lawfully smoking weed might be seen as an invasion of privacy. > "8. It seems batshit crazy to me that I can, as a CA employer, fire someone for having a bad haircut, but I can't fire that person for being nationally televised for marching in support of Nazism."
You don't think freedom to political speech on your own time is a more important and sacred right than freedom of expression via appearance in the workplace? > "Many of them are now going to remain imprisoned for a longer period of time because the advocates of this measure overreached and tried to pass a "marijuana anti-discrimination act" instead of a "marijuana decriminalization act"."
I think the jury's out on how much of the opposition to this bill had to do with marijuana anti-discrimination. I'll absolutely agree that it was bad strategy, particularly as the right seems to already be protected. I'm just not convinced that a critical reading of the proposal would sway voters away from it for its inclusion. Arguments against the anti-discrimination sections were overwhelmingly emotional arguments. Those arguments, and those swayed by them, have never needed a rational basis. If it wasn't "they'll drive high" it would've been "they'll babysit high" or "the welfare queen will be high on your dime" or some similar scare-scenario. |