Welcome to the web site for Speechless: The Erosion of Free Expression in the American Workplace (Berrett-Koehler, May 2007.) On this site you can find information about the author as well as additional resources and references on the subject.
A factory worker is fired because her automobile in the company parking lot has a presidential campaign bumper sticker. An employee is canned after calling the CEO an “evil and satanic figure” on an anonymous message board. A stockbroker resigns after his firm pressures him to curtail his off-work political activities. A web developer is canned for mentioning her employer in her blog. A worker at a defense contractor gets the ax after refusing to participate in a Gulf War celebration.
Freedom of speech is one of our basic rights as United States citizens, but many Americans in the workforce are faced with the choice between exercising this right and keeping their jobs. While the American people are protected from censorship by the government, there are no laws to protect free speech in the workplace.
In Speechless, Bruce Barry guides the readers through the crucial roles of law, convention, and culture in limiting free speech in the workplace. He examines the legal system that allows employers to suppress workers' free speech. Barry argues that freedom of speech in the workplace is excessively and needlessly limited and advocates changes to law and management practices that would expand and protect employee rights without jeapardizing employer interests.
Barry concludes that by requiring employees to forfeit their fundamental rights in the workplace, employers actually impair the health of democracy and civil society as a whole. With most adults spending such a large portion of their time in the workplace, limiting free speech at work discourages employees from developing their civic identity and functioning as full citizens.
