A Critical Discussion of the Limitations on the Employees’ Free Speech at Work

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-277-4_196How to use a DOI?

Keywords

free speech; human rights; workplace

Abstract

Whether it is right for employers to limit employees’ free speech at work has been a controversial question. On the one hand, the right to free speech is a human’s basic right. Employees have the right to express themselves freely without employers’ censorship. On the other hand, employers have legitimate interests in pursuing an efficient operation of the company. People from different backgrounds meet in the workplace, making it a logical place for political and social matters discussion. Sometimes the discussion can lead to offensive views and create a hostile work environment. These speeches can even harm the employers’ reputation if made public. The employers, therefore, tend to limit employees’ free speech. There arises the issue of how to balance employees’ right to free speech and employers’ business interests. I argue that assuming employees can complete their work assignments, employers should normally not limit their free speech at work, even if it may be offensive, except for two main circumstances: first, when excessive chatting compromises work productivity; and second, when their speech goes against public ethics.

Copyright

© 2024 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Xinpeng Liu
PY  - 2024
DA  - 2024/09/02
TI  - A Critical Discussion of the Limitations on the Employees’ Free Speech at Work
BT  - Proceedings of the 2024 10th International Conference on Humanities and Social Science Research (ICHSSR 2024)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 1746
EP  - 1751
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-277-4_196
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-277-4_196
ID  - Liu2024
ER  -