Jos De Roeck
Aug 9, 2017 · 2 min read

Samuel,

Companies are not democracies. They are temporary communities of people working together to achieve the common goal of the company : creating value for the shareholders. The freedom (of speech, opinion, whatever) of the employee is the logical AND of all laws that rule inside his circle. The law of the land, the ‘law’ of the company. A good company sets out rules that encourages people to achieve the company goal in a better way. (productivity, happiness of colleagues, ..) A good society sets out rules that makes its people happy, healthy, educated, etc..

In this particular case, the employee opens 2 discussions: 1) a ruling of the company and 2) a ruling of the “Land”. Which on itself is very interesting, but a bit pointless from the point of view of the company. He can choose to leave the company to create his own with its own laws, or go into politics to change the rule of the land.

(BTW, the latter is also now under discussion whether or not an employee is protected from speaking freely about his opinions in a company)

That’s a dry point of view without nuances, I try to avoid going into the core discussion point itself. If i did that, i would have to use misplaced terms like “macho-ism”, and maybe even right wing opinions about gender differences. Because that is, like you mentioned, a display of intolerance that is not inherently my drive to respond to opinions.

Thank u, Samuel, to read and comment on my humble contribution here. As long as we can communicate with respect for other opinions, chances are that dictators are pushed back under the stones they used to live