Tonkin + Taylor is investigating one of their employees after he heckled Winston Peters on his way to work yesterday morning, to determine if the situation is against their code of conduct.
But individuals don’t give up their speech rights when they accept a job, says Nick Hanne of the Free Speech Union.
“Employers don’t own employees time when they are commuting to work, and the choice to heckle Winston Peters has nothing to do with Tonkin + Taylor. No one asked their opinion. They have nothing to do with the situation.
“The company apologising off the bat sets a dangerous precedent, sending a message to employees that expressing political opinions in public is unacceptable. But individuals don’t forfeit their right to express political views just because they have a job.
“We’re contacting Tonkin + Taylor, urging them to respect their employee’s speech rights, and not to set a poor example to other Kiwi businesses. Employers should not overreach into employees’ personal lives, dictating what is and isn’t acceptable to say. This would cause huge damage to our democracy.
“The heckler was wearing a Tonkin + Taylor lanyard at the time, but it’s common practice for employers to ask employees to wear items like lanyards to help with workplace identification for reasons such as security.
“Companies can’t have it both ways: requiring employees to be identifiable for branding or security purposes, but not when expressing lawful personal views on their own time.”
Fancy heckling Winston, I would of kicked his arse for not setting a referendum about the staying with the WHO.
We all need to heckle, harass and kick out these foreign agents masquerading as our representative politicians.
https://x.com/JimFergusonUK/status/1922563281333473567
Build up a cash reserve before they limit and/or take away ATM’s and get what’s not needed for living expenses out of the banks and into hard assets.
Free speech union is wrong on this one. The guy was free to heckle, but once you are wearing your employer’s logos then sorry that’s a big No no. If you are wearing company logo or in company vehicles, in the company premises, on the company time then you are representing the company. We learnt all that back in the 1990s In this case it was worse because the company relies on the government for work.
Also this idiot has now bought to attention to many people that Tonkin and Taylor are WOKE and push all that rainbow crap. A company to avoid. So yeah damage has been done.
Any worker who publicly abuses a politician, of whatever party, deserves a pay rise in my books. Same goes with abuse toward mainstream media journalists.
Well if you take on a public role then you are answerable to the public. if they criticise you, without threat or defamation, I see no issue myself. I do not see either, what any of this has to do with an employer? Was this person at work, at the time? Doesn’t sound like it? If they don’t want work related items worn outside work hours, then make it company policy, surely? Is this why they have gotten involved?