The sad part is that there is so much intelligence and know-how like this that is being wasted by risk-allergic, dull, no-imagination corporations that would rather have a second plate of sandwiches for the catered lunch meeting than invest in anything truly new or useful.
Anything really cool will require a 50-page "business case." Which, if completed, will be thrown in the trash and the idea still rejected.
It would be really nice if a job could be as rewarding as some of these spare-time (and brillian) projects we read about, but it seems jobs like that are so rare.
Regulating who should be given a merchant account and who shouldn't is crazy. They are in the business (Mastercard) to MAKE MONEY.
So are the small businesses. We have just as much right to MAKE MONEY as THEY DO. The difference is we don't have the opportunity to SCREW THEM OVER with some ARBITRARY BUNCH OF CRAP.
If you force them to support everyone, then all that will happen is ALL Merchant rates will go up.
I'd rather they just STAY OUT OF OUR CASH REGISTER. Thank you very much.
For some small companies, they pay 7% to the merchant. For large companies, they pay 1.5%. Why is this?
It's called price gouging. The small companies don't have the clout to fight it, so they pay extra. And it's not just the merchant accounts. It's everywhere. Simple as that.
. If you want to be in business, its not that hard to get a merchant account.
We already have our system set up. NOW they decide to screw over half our customers. So we pay TWICE because THEY decided to change. That is pure, unfiltered CRAP.
Have a bank account for a year, with a positive balance.
Try to do business, on-line, accepting money orders and checks, from all over the place. Oh, sure. Meanwhile back on Earth, the FACTS are YOU MUST ACCEPT CREDIT CARDS. Customers are not going to sit down and write out a check and mail it. It DOESN'T HAPPEN. If you're in business you already know this, so nice try.
Have decent credit. Have a business plan. Go get merchant account.
Excuse me, but NONE of that is Mastercard's #%*&@$ BUSINESS. We pay our fees. Our service bureau should not be punished by some arbitrary decision.
This is NOTHING about big vs. small business. Those big businesses were once small also, and they had to go through WORSE hoops to accept credit and charge cards.
Oh, cry me a river. This is ALL about big vs. small business. Big business can afford to set up transaction processing on their own site. Small businesses can't. It makes no sense to set up a full e-commerce structure for a low volume company. Better to spend that money on building a better product.
This is a slap in the face to hard working small businesspeople, and Mastercard knows it. Anything else is spin.
Plus, when you see a tiny merchant on the Internet who accepts credit cards, what a lot of people think is "I may as well go for their cheaper-than-usual price, if I get screwed, the merchant account company will credit me back if I don't get anything." And that hurts all of us in added credit card overhead costs.
So we should just SCREW OVER the tiny merchant, and let some other company OVERCHARGE the customer so some third company doesn't have to pay extra. Yeah, that's the ticket. Beat up the little company, take the customer THEY EARNED and hand the money over to someone else.
Do you have any idea how completely screwed that point of view is? That is the ultimate in arrogance and exclusivity. Only the people with perfect credit and a bank balance are allowed to make a living, huh? That tiny merchant has JUST AS MUCH RIGHT TO THE MARKETPLACE AS ANYONE ELSE. It is UNFAIR for Mastercard to deny them access to their OWN CUSTOMERS.
and let the free market handle the rest.
Yeah. The free market as dictated by Mastercard. I feel better already.
Right in the middle of a recession, lets beat up millions of small businesses! What a great idea! And because they're all working 17 hour days to find customers, they won't have time to do anything about it! Fantastic!
Hear that Congress? They just cut the legs out from under half the market for the companies that are going to put most of the unemployed people in this country back to work.
The big businesses win, and the small businesses pay. What a surprise.
I've about had it with the "we're only trying to prevent fraud and abuse" line. NEWSFLASH: There will ALWAYS be fraud. This is just an excuse to screw over customers and merchants while grabbing at more money and control.
Good question. I never quite have understood why every browser, once it reaches the Mac, suddenly loses all hope of running compatible Javascript (IE 5.1 as an example).
So, the ultimate PHB is visited by the MS sales team. "You too can have all these colorful, clickable icons that will make you think you are so high-tech..."
government's purchases of $100 billion worth of technology this year and next
lol Sure that'll be enough?
But getting the United States to use Passport to authenticate its 285 million citizens online would be a coup for the Redmond software company.
Gee, you think?
It would also be a large step toward fulfilling Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates' stated goal of getting everyone on the Internet to use Passport as their sign-on tool.
So that's his stated goal? Interesting. And I suppose we're all just expected to fall into line because Bill has a goal. BZZZT. Thanks for playing! We have some lovely parting gifts..
It now acknowledges that Passport will co-exist with other tools.
Not if 285M people are required to have it.
Microsoft says it has 200 million people registered to use Passport, most of whom signed up because Microsoft told them it was needed to use other Microsoft services, such as its free Hotmail e-mail service or Windows XP operating system.
"I'll take Monopolies for $200, Alex" "The answer is..."
Once you start vouching for identity, that makes you liable for fraud, that makes you liable for identity theft
Oh, I'm sure they'll find a way around that.
This is absolutely wrong. The Government should not involve a private company in this kind of role, ever. This is no different than the commercially-operated intersection cameras where a private company has a financial interest in the number of tickets issued.
And with ol' Billy standing between the citizenry and the ballot box? Come on... they can't possibly be serious.
I think it is pushing things just a bit to do a quarter-million installs with the same CD. If the software is valuable enough to run 270,000 systems, compensate the company fairly.
And people wonder why nobody can get a job as a programmer any more...
This is only going to become more common. Companies have to realize that people are not "consumers" and that they want to particpate rather than just observe. All of the best things happening in the game industry are happening because of the participation of people in the market. Hopefully this will expand, and be encouraged by more astute businesses.
Surely you can understand the difference between a contract, which implies agreement, and suppression, which excludes agreement.
The Bill of Rights comprise a body of inalienable civil rights that cannot be infringed by any agency. If everyone except Congress can violate these rights, then they are no rights at all.
Something like this is going to have initial and ongoing costs. Even if it is developed under an open license, there should be some provision made for commercial use and licensing, but not ownership, of the database once completed.
The alternative is to have the project run out of money, and be bought, probably by a business, and then commercialized anyway.
The best projects will always be those that balance the commercial aspects with the public interest aspects.
Microsoft is based in the state of Washington, which, last I checked, has not seceded from the Union. Therefore, Microsoft is most certainly within the "jurisdiction" of the Constitution.
Further, NO ONE is allowed to supress the free speech rights of another person.
Where did this "the Constitution only applies to Congress" routine get started? It applies to EVERYONE, not just Congress.
What point has anime acceptance reached? Cowboy Bebop on Cartoon network, that's great.
There were, at one point, two MILLION web pages containting the word anime. Toonami was the #1 rated block of programming on the #1 cable network for numerous periods between 1998 and 2001. The Sailor Moon S movie (dub, VHS) was NUMBER ONE on Amazon.com's hot videos list in the Summer of 2000. Then there's Pokemon... That's just a sample. ^^
But without a mechanism for exhibiting the material, I suspect that there will always be a divide between collectors and mass-market consumers, and a corresponding impact on acceptance and public discourse.
Anime may never become a mass market product, but not for the standard reasoning. There is no mass market. Anime will grow in popularity by building its own market rather than trying to "break into" the "mainstream."
Companies that pursue the fictional mass market usually find themselves out of business unless they are selling detergent.
The shockwaves of the success of Toonami are *still* being felt across both cable and network television, and there are network executives that would sell half their company to recreate something similar to when Sailor Moon and DBZ anchored the glory days of afternoon television.
Those two shows built a ratings powerhouse that absolutely annihilated the rest of afternoon cable television, and scared the daylights out of the networks, and did it without a single frame of new programming. (Sailor Moon had already been in syndication for two years)
Pokemon, CCS, the Suncoast DVD display, Adult Swim , etc. were all made possible in part by these older successes.
Yep. Anyone who complains or offers an alternative is a "whiner."
Guess companies can do whatever they want. Employment is becoming no more than a (dubious) step above outright servitude... right up until the inevitable layoff (and right after the mortgage is signed, naturally).
The company has a right to dictate how it's resources are used.
Up to the point where it infringes on an employees rights. This is not arguable. An employer has to abide by the same rules as everyone else.
Most companies WANT you to eat at your desk -- less time out of the office, more time working. So they do what they can to encourage that behavior.
Oh, so now they can pick and choose when and where to trample a person's rights?
charge their employees parking fees... restroom breaks are regulated, and are normally restricted in frequency and duration
lol "Well, there went the last of the reasonable employees"
And an employer CAN regulate your speech when it involves company business. NDA's are a prime example.
Fine. As long as it's an agreement and it involves company business. When it is NOT an agreement and/or does NOT involve company business, the employer's interests, and therefore their authority, stops.
That's the way it is.
Well, it's not the way it should be. People should not have to surrender their freedoms in order to make a living.
If you want to be able to speak freely and still keep your job, you need to get that put into your employment contract.
It would be redundant. Employment contracts that contradict the Bill of Rights are void.
Possibly, although there are certainly some circumstances where allowing any unaudited outside communication
In such a case, where there is a legitimate business need, restrictions on what a person is allowed to say are acceptable, provided it is an agreement. But an agreement by default that employees are to conduct not a single personal conversation at work for the entirety of their career is unjust.
No one is forcing you to work there.
No, but a person's rights follow them wherever they go. If a person chooses to work somewhere, a person chooses to bring their humanity with them, and also their rights. Again, the word "inalienable" comes into play here.
What are these basic rights exactly? It seems to me like you've made just about every contract illegal.
Freedom of speech, press, religion, privacy, against unreasonable search and seizure, due process, etc.
Speech is the issue here. Who pays for the communications system is irrelevant. Freedom of speech supersedes who paid the phone bill.
The company isn't imposing that restriction: the government did when congress enacted trademark law.
Yes, but the company enforces it.
I certainly can criticize them if my criticisms are factual. Libel and/or slander don't apply in that case.
A deft sidestepping of the original example. Whether or not the criticism is accurate is beside the point. The company can suppress a person's speech through litigation, which the average citizen will usually try to avoid. The result is a chilling effect on free speech, if not an outright suppression of it.
No, but there is a rather compelling incentive to keep a job, and the draconian restrictions on your every working minute are usually not discussed until well after the W-4 has been signed.
chatting with your warez buddies on AIM
Objection. Assumes facts not in evidence.
This is called "reductio ad absurdum." The proposed regulation is to restrict ALL personal conversation during the work day. How about a mother calling the school to discuss a pick up time with the principal? Isn't it equally absurd to suppose that an employer is within their rights to force a mother to leave her own children stranded somewhere? Or should she arrange for her children on her own time? lol
Why do you think that because you work with computer equipment that you are special?
I have a better question: Why do employers think that because they distribute paychecks that they are entitled to ignore the basic dignity of the people they employ and attempt to control their lives?
You do not have an inalienable right to use other people's equipment to chat on the Internet.
Fine. Does an employee have the right to eat lunch at their desk, or should they have rental for the area deducted from their paycheck? Does an employee have the right to use the restroom? Should they pay to park their car in the office parking structure? None of those areas belong to the employee either. No one is forcing the employee to drive their car to work. No one is forcing them to eat lunch either.
If employers want to continue to develop this adversarial relationship with their employees, that's fine. I certainly hope they don't plan to gripe when morale sinks to 0 and/or all the qualified people quit because there is someone standing next to them all day making sure they fulfill the letter of their contract.
All that said, it doesn't change the original point. Employer or not, they do NOT have the right to regulate another person's speech.
If you still disagree, cite the relevant section of the US Constitution that says anything about employers.
An amusing red herring, but beside the point. The original statement stands as written. Freedom of speech is meaningless if society chooses to countenance its restriction by any agency, government or not. The same goes for privacy, due process, and the rest of the Constitution.
It applies to everyone, or it is meaningless.
Tell me how, say, Walmart (for whom I do not work) could possibly restrict my speech
1) You can't use the term "$Company Name" because it is trademarked.
2) You can't criticize $Company in public because it hurts their business.
Either of these can be enforced by fiat because the average citizen will choose not to litigate for the right to make an offhand remark. Nevertheless, these are both unjust restrictions on speech.
Freedom of speech is also the right to not have another person restrict your speech, otherwise it is no freedom at all.
Why is the employee/employer relationship entitled to so many exemptions from the basics of every other element of society? What if a non-employer corporation sought to restrict the speech of people? The screams would shake the Earth.
Why is it acceptable then for an employer to do the exact same thing?
But these "contracts" are almost never written. They are decrees delivered from the raised dais of management, usually in the form of a memo.
To expect to isolate someone from all "personal" conversations during the work day is an unjust exercise of control, basically for the sake of control. It really has next to nothing to do with the company or the work.
It certainly doesn't give the employer the right to the contents of that conversation.
For most of the people in this country, a job is a necessity. To withhold necessities from people in exchange for their abdication of their inalienable (an important word) rights is to offend those rights to the point of denying them altogether.
No person, employer or otherwise, should be empowered, either by necessity or choice, to deny the basic rights of another person.
No. Mainly because nine times out of ten, management hasn't the foggiest idea what is going on from day to day. Oh sure, every once in a while there's some frantically organized flailing "initiative" complete with an announcement at an all-hands meeting, but by and large, management doesn't understand a single detail of the work in most companies.
Then everyone gets laid off. Welcome to the workplace.
Slashdot Mirror
Sounds quite ingenious. :)
The sad part is that there is so much intelligence and know-how like this that is being wasted by risk-allergic, dull, no-imagination corporations that would rather have a second plate of sandwiches for the catered lunch meeting than invest in anything truly new or useful.
Anything really cool will require a 50-page "business case." Which, if completed, will be thrown in the trash and the idea still rejected.
It would be really nice if a job could be as rewarding as some of these spare-time (and brillian) projects we read about, but it seems jobs like that are so rare.
Regulating who should be given a merchant account and who shouldn't is crazy. They are in the business (Mastercard) to MAKE MONEY.
So are the small businesses. We have just as much right to MAKE MONEY as THEY DO. The difference is we don't have the opportunity to SCREW THEM OVER with some ARBITRARY BUNCH OF CRAP.
If you force them to support everyone, then all that will happen is ALL Merchant rates will go up.
I'd rather they just STAY OUT OF OUR CASH REGISTER. Thank you very much.
For some small companies, they pay 7% to the merchant. For large companies, they pay 1.5%. Why is this?
It's called price gouging. The small companies don't have the clout to fight it, so they pay extra. And it's not just the merchant accounts. It's everywhere. Simple as that.
. If you want to be in business, its not that hard to get a merchant account.
We already have our system set up. NOW they decide to screw over half our customers. So we pay TWICE because THEY decided to change. That is pure, unfiltered CRAP.
Have a bank account for a year, with a positive balance.
Try to do business, on-line, accepting money orders and checks, from all over the place. Oh, sure. Meanwhile back on Earth, the FACTS are YOU MUST ACCEPT CREDIT CARDS. Customers are not going to sit down and write out a check and mail it. It DOESN'T HAPPEN. If you're in business you already know this, so nice try.
Have decent credit. Have a business plan. Go get merchant account.
Excuse me, but NONE of that is Mastercard's
#%*&@$ BUSINESS. We pay our fees. Our service bureau should not be punished by some arbitrary decision.
This is NOTHING about big vs. small business. Those big businesses were once small also, and they had to go through WORSE hoops to accept credit and charge cards.
Oh, cry me a river. This is ALL about big vs. small business. Big business can afford to set up transaction processing on their own site. Small businesses can't. It makes no sense to set up a full e-commerce structure for a low volume company. Better to spend that money on building a better product.
This is a slap in the face to hard working small businesspeople, and Mastercard knows it. Anything else is spin.
Plus, when you see a tiny merchant on the Internet who accepts credit cards, what a lot of people think is "I may as well go for their cheaper-than-usual price, if I get screwed, the merchant account company will credit me back if I don't get anything." And that hurts all of us in added credit card overhead costs.
So we should just SCREW OVER the tiny merchant, and let some other company OVERCHARGE the customer so some third company doesn't have to pay extra. Yeah, that's the ticket. Beat up the little company, take the customer THEY EARNED and hand the money over to someone else.
Do you have any idea how completely screwed that point of view is? That is the ultimate in arrogance and exclusivity. Only the people with perfect credit and a bank balance are allowed to make a living, huh? That tiny merchant has JUST AS MUCH RIGHT TO THE MARKETPLACE AS ANYONE ELSE. It is UNFAIR for Mastercard to deny them access to their OWN CUSTOMERS.
and let the free market handle the rest.
Yeah. The free market as dictated by Mastercard. I feel better already.
Right in the middle of a recession, lets beat up millions of small businesses! What a great idea! And because they're all working 17 hour days to find customers, they won't have time to do anything about it! Fantastic!
Hear that Congress? They just cut the legs out from under half the market for the companies that are going to put most of the unemployed people in this country back to work.
The big businesses win, and the small businesses pay. What a surprise.
I've about had it with the "we're only trying to prevent fraud and abuse" line. NEWSFLASH: There will ALWAYS be fraud. This is just an excuse to screw over customers and merchants while grabbing at more money and control.
20 years would be better. Some kinds of works take 3-5 years to develop.
doesn't bother the IT industry
yet IE still doesn't support PNG properly
;)
hmmmm
Good question. I never quite have understood why every browser, once it reaches the Mac, suddenly loses all hope of running compatible Javascript (IE 5.1 as an example).
So, the ultimate PHB is visited by the MS sales team. "You too can have all these colorful, clickable icons that will make you think you are so high-tech..."
government's purchases of $100 billion worth of technology this year and next
lol Sure that'll be enough?
But getting the United States to use Passport to authenticate its 285 million citizens online would be a coup for the Redmond software company.
Gee, you think?
It would also be a large step toward fulfilling Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates' stated goal of getting everyone on the Internet to use Passport as their sign-on tool.
So that's his stated goal? Interesting. And I suppose we're all just expected to fall into line because Bill has a goal. BZZZT. Thanks for playing! We have some lovely parting gifts..
It now acknowledges that Passport will co-exist with other tools.
Not if 285M people are required to have it.
Microsoft says it has 200 million people registered to use Passport, most of whom signed up because Microsoft told them it was needed to use other Microsoft services, such as its free Hotmail e-mail service or Windows XP operating system.
"I'll take Monopolies for $200, Alex"
"The answer is..."
Once you start vouching for identity, that makes you liable for fraud, that makes you liable for identity theft
Oh, I'm sure they'll find a way around that.
This is absolutely wrong. The Government should not involve a private company in this kind of role, ever. This is no different than the commercially-operated intersection cameras where a private company has a financial interest in the number of tickets issued.
And with ol' Billy standing between the citizenry and the ballot box? Come on... they can't possibly be serious.
Why not just download it and save the other $90?
/sarcasm
I think it is pushing things just a bit to do a quarter-million installs with the same CD. If the software is valuable enough to run 270,000 systems, compensate the company fairly.
And people wonder why nobody can get a job as a programmer any more...
Looks like we might be on the right track too.
This is only going to become more common. Companies have to realize that people are not "consumers" and that they want to particpate rather than just observe. All of the best things happening in the game industry are happening because of the participation of people in the market. Hopefully this will expand, and be encouraged by more astute businesses.
Day job.
Bills are due *every* 30 days.
KidVid.
This will be shut down so fast the air leaving the corporation's conference room will pull the table out into the hall.
I guess even the high-priced executives don't read anything on their three-hour lunches.
Next stop: Congressional Subpoena.
GOODNIGHT EVERYBODY!!
Surely you can understand the difference between a contract, which implies agreement, and suppression, which excludes agreement.
The Bill of Rights comprise a body of inalienable civil rights that cannot be infringed by any agency. If everyone except Congress can violate these rights, then they are no rights at all.
Something like this is going to have initial and ongoing costs. Even if it is developed under an open license, there should be some provision made for commercial use and licensing, but not ownership, of the database once completed.
The alternative is to have the project run out of money, and be bought, probably by a business, and then commercialized anyway.
The best projects will always be those that balance the commercial aspects with the public interest aspects.
It is an excellent idea, however.
Microsoft is based in the state of Washington, which, last I checked, has not seceded from the Union. Therefore, Microsoft is most certainly within the "jurisdiction" of the Constitution.
Further, NO ONE is allowed to supress the free speech rights of another person.
Where did this "the Constitution only applies to Congress" routine get started? It applies to EVERYONE, not just Congress.
What point has anime acceptance reached? Cowboy Bebop on Cartoon network, that's great.
There were, at one point, two MILLION web pages containting the word anime. Toonami was the #1 rated block of programming on the #1 cable network for numerous periods between 1998 and 2001. The Sailor Moon S movie (dub, VHS) was NUMBER ONE on Amazon.com's hot videos list in the Summer of 2000. Then there's Pokemon... That's just a sample. ^^
But without a mechanism for exhibiting the material, I suspect that there will always be a divide between collectors and mass-market consumers, and a corresponding impact on acceptance and public discourse.
Anime may never become a mass market product, but not for the standard reasoning. There is no mass market. Anime will grow in popularity by building its own market rather than trying to "break into" the "mainstream."
Companies that pursue the fictional mass market usually find themselves out of business unless they are selling detergent.
The shockwaves of the success of Toonami are *still* being felt across both cable and network television, and there are network executives that would sell half their company to recreate something similar to when Sailor Moon and DBZ anchored the glory days of afternoon television.
Those two shows built a ratings powerhouse that absolutely annihilated the rest of afternoon cable television, and scared the daylights out of the networks, and did it without a single frame of new programming. (Sailor Moon had already been in syndication for two years)
Pokemon, CCS, the Suncoast DVD display, Adult Swim , etc. were all made possible in part by these older successes.
Yep. Anyone who complains or offers an alternative is a "whiner."
Guess companies can do whatever they want. Employment is becoming no more than a (dubious) step above outright servitude... right up until the inevitable layoff (and right after the mortgage is signed, naturally).
...and people don't care.
You havn't worked much in your life have you?
lol Whatever.
The company has a right to dictate how it's resources are used.
Up to the point where it infringes on an employees rights. This is not arguable. An employer has to abide by the same rules as everyone else.
Most companies WANT you to eat at your desk -- less time out of the office, more time working. So they do what they can to encourage that behavior.
Oh, so now they can pick and choose when and where to trample a person's rights?
charge their employees parking fees... restroom breaks are regulated, and are normally restricted in frequency and duration
lol "Well, there went the last of the reasonable employees"
And an employer CAN regulate your speech when it involves company business. NDA's are a prime example.
Fine. As long as it's an agreement and it involves company business. When it is NOT an agreement and/or does NOT involve company business, the employer's interests, and therefore their authority, stops.
That's the way it is.
Well, it's not the way it should be. People should not have to surrender their freedoms in order to make a living.
If you want to be able to speak freely and still keep your job, you need to get that put into your employment contract.
It would be redundant. Employment contracts that contradict the Bill of Rights are void.
Possibly, although there are certainly some circumstances where allowing any unaudited outside communication
In such a case, where there is a legitimate business need, restrictions on what a person is allowed to say are acceptable, provided it is an agreement. But an agreement by default that employees are to conduct not a single personal conversation at work for the entirety of their career is unjust.
No one is forcing you to work there.
No, but a person's rights follow them wherever they go. If a person chooses to work somewhere, a person chooses to bring their humanity with them, and also their rights. Again, the word "inalienable" comes into play here.
What are these basic rights exactly? It seems to me like you've made just about every contract illegal.
Freedom of speech, press, religion, privacy, against unreasonable search and seizure, due process, etc.
Speech is the issue here. Who pays for the communications system is irrelevant. Freedom of speech supersedes who paid the phone bill.
The company isn't imposing that restriction: the government did when congress enacted trademark law.
Yes, but the company enforces it.
I certainly can criticize them if my criticisms are factual. Libel and/or slander don't apply in that case.
A deft sidestepping of the original example. Whether or not the criticism is accurate is beside the point. The company can suppress a person's speech through litigation, which the average citizen will usually try to avoid. The result is a chilling effect on free speech, if not an outright suppression of it.
No one forces you to take a job.
No, but there is a rather compelling incentive to keep a job, and the draconian restrictions on your every working minute are usually not discussed until well after the W-4 has been signed.
chatting with your warez buddies on AIM
Objection. Assumes facts not in evidence.
This is called "reductio ad absurdum." The proposed regulation is to restrict ALL personal conversation during the work day. How about a mother calling the school to discuss a pick up time with the principal? Isn't it equally absurd to suppose that an employer is within their rights to force a mother to leave her own children stranded somewhere? Or should she arrange for her children on her own time? lol
Why do you think that because you work with computer equipment that you are special?
I have a better question: Why do employers think that because they distribute paychecks that they are entitled to ignore the basic dignity of the people they employ and attempt to control their lives?
You do not have an inalienable right to use other people's equipment to chat on the Internet.
Fine. Does an employee have the right to eat lunch at their desk, or should they have rental for the area deducted from their paycheck? Does an employee have the right to use the restroom? Should they pay to park their car in the office parking structure? None of those areas belong to the employee either. No one is forcing the employee to drive their car to work. No one is forcing them to eat lunch either.
If employers want to continue to develop this adversarial relationship with their employees, that's fine. I certainly hope they don't plan to gripe when morale sinks to 0 and/or all the qualified people quit because there is someone standing next to them all day making sure they fulfill the letter of their contract.
All that said, it doesn't change the original point. Employer or not, they do NOT have the right to regulate another person's speech.
If you still disagree, cite the relevant section of the US Constitution that says anything about employers.
An amusing red herring, but beside the point. The original statement stands as written. Freedom of speech is meaningless if society chooses to countenance its restriction by any agency, government or not. The same goes for privacy, due process, and the rest of the Constitution.
It applies to everyone, or it is meaningless.
Tell me how, say, Walmart (for whom I do not work) could possibly restrict my speech
1) You can't use the term "$Company Name" because it is trademarked.
2) You can't criticize $Company in public because it hurts their business.
Either of these can be enforced by fiat because the average citizen will choose not to litigate for the right to make an offhand remark. Nevertheless, these are both unjust restrictions on speech.
Freedom of speech is also the right to not have another person restrict your speech, otherwise it is no freedom at all.
Why is the employee/employer relationship entitled to so many exemptions from the basics of every other element of society? What if a non-employer corporation sought to restrict the speech of people? The screams would shake the Earth.
Why is it acceptable then for an employer to do the exact same thing?
But these "contracts" are almost never written. They are decrees delivered from the raised dais of management, usually in the form of a memo.
To expect to isolate someone from all "personal" conversations during the work day is an unjust exercise of control, basically for the sake of control. It really has next to nothing to do with the company or the work.
It certainly doesn't give the employer the right to the contents of that conversation.
For most of the people in this country, a job is a necessity. To withhold necessities from people in exchange for their abdication of their inalienable (an important word) rights is to offend those rights to the point of denying them altogether.
No person, employer or otherwise, should be empowered, either by necessity or choice, to deny the basic rights of another person.
No. Mainly because nine times out of ten, management hasn't the foggiest idea what is going on from day to day. Oh sure, every once in a while there's some frantically organized flailing "initiative" complete with an announcement at an all-hands meeting, but by and large, management doesn't understand a single detail of the work in most companies.
Then everyone gets laid off. Welcome to the workplace.