RedBalloon, a conservative-leaning job services company, has taken the lead in promoting an employee bill of rights to protect employees from woke ideology in the workplace.
The company hosts a job board that connects like-minded employees to companies across the country, with a shared focus on productivity and innovation versus having the “correct” ideology of the moment.Across the country, thousands of conservative Americans have reported work discrimination because of their privately held beliefs.
Some have even lost their jobs due to pressure from activist colleagues or politically correct employers, Andrew Crapuchettes, the founder and CEO of Red Balloon, told The Epoch Times.
Informing Conservative Employees of Their Rights
The guide was written with the help of Harvard Law graduate Laura Baxter, a member of RedBalloon’s legal team who has been a labor lawyer in California for 20 years.The RedBalloon CEO hopes to inspire employees who fear losing their jobs over their personal opinions to stand up for their rights at work.
“Knowledge is power, and if you don’t know what your rights are, it’s gonna be a lot harder to stand up for them,” Crapuchettes told The Epoch Times, referring to woke employers.
“If you know that actually you are legally protected on this one,” he said. “And that you can stand up and say that if you do, the Constitution has your back.”
The 22-page Employee Bill of Rights puts forth five rights for employees and five responsibilities for employers.
Teaching Conservatives How to Employ the Same Tools Used Against Them at Work
He said that conservatives should know they should use some of the tools that have been used against them in the past by the left, and use them for their own purposes.Crapuchettes said some of the things that are suggested in the guide may be a little surprising to conservatives, such as the legal protected right of employees to form groups or organize.
“I know that sounds a lot like organized labor or unions, but the reality is that today, workers need to work together to push back against their local HR department or else they’re going to lose their freedoms at work,” Crapuchettes explained.
Employee groups are legally able to present petitions to management, either in writing or in person, and even ask for pay raises while they are at it.
He said that non-woke employees should make clear that they cannot be forced to go through training or workplace celebrations that violate their personal consciences.
Other rights include the ability for groups of workers to request a repeal of vaccine mandates and other COVID restrictions not required by law, or demand enhanced maternity and paternity leave, especially if their company pays for abortion travel.
He also recommended that conservative employees not use their knowledge to bludgeon their employers or create their own unions.
“We don’t encourage people to go create, you know a big union, with bosses and all the bad things that went along with that,” Crapuchettes said.
“We want conservatives to be brave and say ‘hey, if you get together after work and sign a petition that you don’t want a vaccine mandate or you just don’t want to mask mandate or [have] CRT training in the office, you are perfectly within your legal rights to do that.’”
DEI Is Causing Workplace Productivity to Die
The RedBalloon CEO said there needs to be a massive pushback against diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) training, due to the long-term destruction of businesses and the crushing effect it has on millions of American workers.He is particularly critical toward HR departments, which he accused of “sapping the joy out of work” and of being the prime instigators of wokeness and a breakdown in teamwork in the workplace.
“Courageous employees are actually the best kind of employees, but unfortunately, DEI training and CRT training—all of these inclusion measures—are making it so that people aren’t willing to be brave or courageous at work anymore, and so our document is hopefully there to push back against that,” he said.
He also said that those figures do not include the damage caused by workplace demoralization, the loss of productivity, or the fear of employees’ to speak honestly because of a hostile work climate.
Another report by McKenzie mentioned that Intel was setting aside about $300 million dollars to fund diversity efforts over the course of five years, which Crapuchettes labeled as wasteful and “absolutely ridiculous.”
He also cited a Gallup poll that noted that 60 percent of people reported being emotionally distracted at work, with 19 percent being miserable, while only 33 percent felt supported and engaged.
“Obviously, when you are telling people that they don’t have rights in the workplace and they’re not allowed to live their values out loud, and that’s true for probably 50 percent of people in a lot of these companies,” said Crapuchettes.
“Why would I put my best effort in for a company that’s trying to tell me that I’m evil because I’m white or that I’m evil because I’m a conservative?”
“That’s just going to produce bad workers who are disengaged and aren’t excited about what their company is doing.”