Employer’s story seems rather more likely: employees were mocking a manager’s physical appearance by wearing the orange shirts. Comments in the article state that the protest was arranged by internal office email, but obviously such internet comments are generally not to be taken seriously.

Even so, I am not sure I understand why people are swallowing employees’ story hook, line, and sinker. It may be true, I guess, but it requires a lot of coincidence to believe: that employees all wear same color shirt to be seen as a team at Happy Hour; that this color happens to mock physical appearance of manager; that only one employee agreed with this theory when asked; and that a law firm would fire 14 employees for no reason at all.

Yes, if all these things were simultaneously true, then the firing was capricious. I have zero knowledge of the actual facts here, but employer’s story (employees arranged a protest to mock a manager’s appearance) is simpler, more plausible, and better fits the facts as reported.

However, what happened here is a different case. That’s because these people were fired for cause, namely, wearing orange. In order to be fired for cause, the “cause” must be bonafide, and yes, if the employee handbook says thou shalt not wear orange, that’s a bonafide cause, stupid as it may be. Problem is that there was no employee policy against wearing orange, or any other color.

So, when this gets in front of a judge and jury as it inevitably will, the jury will almost certainly find for the plaintiffs.

About this “law firm.” They’re a foreclosure mill, which speaks volumes about them from the get go.

Sounds extreme for 14 people to be dismissed for such a reason. Might there be more to it?

I agree. I depart from what I imagine to be the libertarian position here: I think free speech is a greater value than employement-at-will WHEN THE TWO ARE IN CONFLICT. You shouldn’t normally be able to fire someone for political belief or expression. That value is simply too important to throw people into homelessness over, and unless you can show how the speech interferes with the employer’s mission, I guess I don’t see how we’re better off if the anti-abortion protestor gets fired from DuPont or the immigration opponent gets fired from his job as a schoolteacher.

But I’m mostly uncomfortable with this for particular reasons: nobody with a left-wing view is likely to get fired from their government or big corporation job, but someone with a right-wing view certainly is. That’s what makes me laugh about all these OWS clowns: the “evil corporate America” you denounce would probably underwrite your camping trip if you let them. Convince Chevron to take a public stance against affirmative or gay marriage, and I’ll eat my words.

For any practical purposes, my freedom in such situation is purely theoretical. I may be free from some government oppression or whatever, but I’m not free to speak my mind.

Of course, most employers do not have the power to make people homeless (you can get another job or start a business). However, your definition of freedom assumes some balance of power between individual players.

If it does not assume such thing, then we can conclude that the middle age feudal system was an extremely free society. After all, you could freely speak your mind, except that the private owner of the land you lived on could impose consequences for that on you (get you tortured and killed).