Every day, across the globe, people have problems with their job. They feel like their boss doesn’t understand them, doesn’t respect them, and wants too much from them for too little in salary. All legitimate reasons to not like your profession, but these aren’t reasons to skip out on doing your work.
In more eccentric fields of work, you will find similar complaints, but more latitude about the peculiar dislikes is accepted.
Then you have people like Michael Lopez who before this whole fiasco worked processing reports for Universal Music Group (UMG). Focusing primarily on new releases, he had a relatively straightforward and by all accounts simple job. One that he was very well compensated for.
Upon the overturning of Roe v Wade, Lopez claimed he was “devastated by the news of the Supreme Court’s attack on abortion rights. Paired with the flood of anti-queer and anti-trans legislation, it’s been hard to process how [companies] expect us to be productive while our rights are being stripped away.”
In a post on LinkedIn, he explained that one of his tasks for UMG on Friday was to “process reports for upcoming releases,” and to distribute them via email to 275 people. He went on to instead send the following in that email.
Michael Lopez fired for refusing to work while mourning abortion rights reversal https://t.co/FQSA5Dg722
— UpdatesPlug 🔌 (@updates_plug) July 4, 2022
“I didn’t do them today…I’m in mourning due to the attack on people with uteruses in the US. Federally guaranteed access to abortion is gone…Vivendi and Universal Music Group must stop donating to anti-abortion, anti-queer and anti-trans politicians. Politicians like Marsha Blackburn, Ken Buck, Victoria Spartz, etc. Or expect more unproductive days…Yours in fury, Michael Lopez”
In response to this post and email, Lopez claimed he received numerous messages of support from coworkers, and a supervisor told him to take the rest of the day off while expressing his pride in Lopez’s decision to let others know of the company’s donations.
Much like all other good things, this had to come to an end. For Lopez that ending was all too abrupt.
He was quickly and unceremoniously fired.
While he was able to fire off a follow-up email where he legitimately attempted to make a case for not doing his job and being disruptive to 275 other workers. As if this is something that employers should expect and be ok with. Like personal politics are the responsibility of the employer to do what the whiney liberals want above what is right.
People like Michael Lopez make it incredibly difficult for anything the left says to be taken seriously. This crazy idea that you can say and do whatever you want (or not do for that matter) without consequence because of the first amendment is proof that the liberal left still doesn’t grasp the concept at all.
These same people who expect to be allowed to do this as a form of protest are the same ones who get upset if someone uses that same amendment to tell them to keep God in schools, ban abortions, or send the illegals back home.
There is no splitting hairs on the subject here. It’s absolute, even when it doesn’t suit the purposes of people like Lopez.
Even with his incredibly ignorant choice to make his stand, and his disbelief that it could have consequences to it, Lopez still deserves a drop of respect. Even from the right.
His decision to make a statement, stand for his statement, and refuse to be pushed around for his beliefs is a noble ideal. Just a really, really ignorant way to do it.
