This is completely commonplace. Yes, you can be fired for doing something outside of work that would bring your employer into disrepute.
If anything this used to be much more common before the era of codes of conduct, when people were, for example, routinely fired when it was discovered that they were gay.
If you can be fired for doing something in private, then your work intrudes and takes over your personal life. If it happens, than it's a huge mistake on the part of the society, as it robs humans of their life outside of work, and turns them into half-slaves where their workplace has a say over their entire life.
Instead of continuing this practice, we should work to stop it and restore the private sphere.
> If anything this used to be much more common before the era of codes of conduct, when people were, for example, routinely fired when it was discovered that they were gay.
Your comment is a bit cryptic, but I assume you're trying to make an equivalence between, say, someone being fired for being gay in the 1970s and someone now being fired for saying hateful things about trans people. These scenarios are only comparable at a level of abstraction that's not useful. It's only inconsistent to oppose one thing and not the other if you think that employers should be barred from firing people for anything that they say or do outside of work. I don't think there has ever been a society where this was the norm. Looking at the big picture, people nowadays have far more freedom in this respect than they ever did (e.g. women are not fired when they get married).
There's a lot of overlap between those two categories, so I'd assume about the same number. But like many others in this thread you're choosing to make your point in a cryptic way. I'm sure you know that statistics on this aren't available, so what is the point that you really want to make here?
>What part of having absolutely nothing to do with the company or its business do you not understand?
We were presumably talking about cases where people might be fired or excluded from a project for e.g. making transphobic comments in public outside of a work context. If you agree that this isn't a case where the actions have 'nothing to do with the company or its business' (because of reputational issues), then it seems that we're in agreement.
>If anything, it seems like nowadays people can be routinely fired when it's discovered that they are straight.
Say you're a car mechanic and you work at a car shop. The car shop fires you for saying the Moon is made of cheese during a BBQ at a friend's on Saturday, because it's against the nebulous code of conduct.
Now let's say you're a programmer and you like volunteering code to GCC. The project bans you because your beliefs expressed anywhere, including in the privacy of your own home, violate the nebulous code of conduct.
That's the kind of world we're slowly but surely moving towards.
>Say you're a car mechanic and you work at a car shop. The car shop fires you for saying the Moon is made of cheese during a BBQ at a friend's on Saturday, because it's against the nebulous code of conduct.
Or maybe we’re slowly but surely moving to a world where the rights of women and minority groups are being slowly eroded after decades of progress, and before long me and all the other gays will be rounded up and sent to conversion camps in Florida run by a newly-nationalised Disney corporation.
I’m gonna guess you don’t find the line of argument in the preceding paragraph super convincing. I feel the same way about what you wrote.
I already responded to that question here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36431254 I may have misunderstood what you meant by it, in which case it would be helpful if you could explain what you did mean.
If an employee makes "transphobic comments in public outside of a work context" then upon what grounds does the employer have to terminate him for that? An employer should not be able to terminate an employee for something they do in their private time.
Likewise, GCC should not be able to ban someone for doing something not related to GCC. That GCC's code of conduct allows for that is preposterous.
>An employer should not be able to terminate an employee for something they do in their private time.
My point was just that this is nothing new. It's always been the case that you could be fired for certain things that you did in your private time (e.g., historically, being gay). This is because what you do outside of work can affect the reputation of your employer. Within legal limits your employer has the right to freedom of association (just as you do).
It has always been the case, with volunteer work and work-for-hire, that you could get canned for things you say or do outside of work.
But I'm going to have to call slippery slope on the cheese moon thing. We're not moving towards a world where literally every thing you can possibly say will get you fired.
> What part of having absolutely nothing to do with the company or its business do you not understand?
Maybe don't respond to someone who ignores core elements of the statements they are ostensibly replying to? If your posts are coherent and compelling, a respondent moving the goalpost or changing the conversation is obvious.
If you are being charitable, quoting a historical summary of the back-and-forth to clarify your own understanding and where it went wrong, would be helpful. Otherwise, this game of "nuh-uh" is not constructive.
If anything this used to be much more common before the era of codes of conduct, when people were, for example, routinely fired when it was discovered that they were gay.