Freedom to Ignore Speech Weakening
The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees not only the freedom to speak but also the freedom not to listen. The U.S. Supreme Court has recognized that "no one has a right to press even good ideas on an unwilling recipient." Nevertheless, American businesses are increasingly violating what should be the acknowledged free speech rights of their employees.Frito-Lay Inc., one of the world’s largest producers of snack foods, is also one of the country’s worst abusers of its employees’ right not to listen. It routinely not only compels its employees to listen to anti-union diatribes, on company time and property, but also forces its drivers to allow anti-union advocates to accompany them on their routes, requiring the captive drivers to listen to their anti-union speech.
We don’t want to allow children to be used a captive audience in schools and parents are usually in favor of keeping political speech and religious speech out of the public school classrooms. Adult workers should have the same protection in the work place.
I know pagans who have worked at or for companies that lead each meeting or training session with a specifically Christian prayer. Nobody can force a worker to sit through it, but does anyone doubt that doing so might affect one’s career potential within the company?
To me what’s striking about the Frito Lay case is the demonstration of how beat down Labor has become. As a member of an effective and responsive union who’s work place rights are well protected by a fair contract that both management and labor are happy with I am very rare among American laborers these days.