Can I share my thoughts about the war in Israel/Gaza, or will it cost me my job?
The recent firing of Katherine Grzejszczak, a paramedic working for the Regional Municipality of York (north of Toronto), for her Facebook comment condemning Israel’s bombing of Iran, killing children at food aid depots, and the murdering of journalists, municipal workers, and healthcare workers highlights a serious problem involving workers’ rights to freedom of expression.
Admittedly, there is no contemporary issue more polarizing in Western politics than the ongoing conflict and inconceivable suffering taking place in Gaza. Whether one is a staunch supporter of Israel’s response to the deadly attack launched by Hamas on 7 October 2023 or firmly maintain that the Israeli government is a colonial power guilty of committing war crimes and brazen acts of genocide, the debates about what is taking place in Israel and Palestine are a defining feature of our age.
These debates challenge firmly held beliefs about democracies and war, inviting us to examine questions of terrorism and military responses, and demand our leaders answer hard questions about their support for a government whose war leadership stands accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court. At issue are fundamental questions of human rights, war, peace, and, yes, genocide.
The widespread sense of injustice, injury, threat, and fear emanating from this conflict is not limited to Israelis and Palestinians. Its reverberations are being experienced throughout the world, stoking intense passions and antagonisms both on- and off-line. Being exposed to, and/or articulating, expressions of support for, or opposition to, the actions of Israel in Gaza (and the wider region) and/or calls for recognizing Palestinian rights has become part of peoples’ daily routines, both inside and outside workplaces.
Yet, in a time when social media permeates almost every aspect of daily life, global spam bots, anti-democratic misinformation, along with the rise of the far right and a host of other anti-democratic forces makes engaging in these debates all the more challenging. In Canada, for instance, the conflict has been associated with growing antisemitism, Islamophobia, and anti-Palestinian racism across the country.
Workers, like all citizens, have their own opinions about the conflict and have taken to social media to voice their positions. This has coincided with growing numbers of workers being disciplined or even dismissed for publicly expressing their voice whether inside or outside the workplace or on university campuses.
In a democracy, Grzejszczak, or anyone else, has the right to make statements on the war in Gaza or other controversial issues and not be subjected to reprisal from the state, even if the state is their employer. Yet, when Grzejszczak posted a comment on Facebook expressing her personal view, and that of her union’s leadership, York Region fired them for their statement. This, despite the fact they posted the comment from their personal Facebook account.
Grzejszczak is not alone in facing the wrath of a public sector employer for making personal or political statements while off-duty. In our research, we have noticed the spaces between workers’ personal lives and their work lives are becoming ever more blurred. Increasingly, employers are policing workers’ online lives, narrowing the spaces where workers are free to express their personal views.
We have tracked and read well over 90 arbitration and court cases from across Canada of workers having faced discipline from employers for their expression and placed them in the constantly growing publicly accessible Freedom of Expression @Work database hosted by the Centre for Freedom of Expression at Toronto Metropolitan University. To be sure, workers sometimes make egregious statements online, and some workplaces have policies in place that respect workers’ free expression rights when they are not on duty. Arbitrators, for their part, have developed numerous legal tests to adjudicate these boundaries with a cardinal rule being the more a worker aligns their social media profile with their employer, the more likely they are to be disciplined for comments made online. Of course, the reverse also is true. If your social media profile has little to no connection to your employment or you do not cause reputational harm to the employer, arbitrators have been fairly consistent in limiting or even reversing employer discipline.
Grzejszczak’s post reflected their work as a union activist who is committed to international solidarity with Palestinian workers. It did not call out their employer. However, it did expose a debate within the labour movement, and Canadian society, over international boycotts and broader solidarity work that their own union leadership has openly endorsed. Moreover, Grzejszczak’s post referenced several independently verified events involving the direct targeting of civilians in a war zone along with other war crimes; something even the former Prime Minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert has denounced.
In other words, Grzejszczak was taking a political position on one of the most important global controversies of our times and doing so as a union activist. In a democracy this is her right. York Region has taken a step that is now being grieved and, understanding the precedent as we do, seems very likely to be overturned. In our view, Grzejszczak’s rights have been violated and the correct thing to do is for York Region to reinstate her, thereby respecting the right of free expression in our society.
