Corporate Cancel Culture
'How does corporate culture curtail free speech? Josh Bornstein (Working for the Brand) discusses how the unchecked power of corporations is encroaching upon employees’ democratic rights, and what can be done to resist. With Gideon Haigh.'
Josh Bornstein asks how our major corporations have come to exercise repressive control over the lives of their employees, and explores what can be done to repair the greatest threat to democracy — the out-of-control corporation.
When you go to work, you agree to exchange your labour in exchange for your pay packet, right? Actually, you may not realise it, but you are also selling your rights to free speech and to participate in democracy. Welcome to corporate cancel culture, a burgeoning phenomenon that is routinely ignored in debates about free speech. If you work for a large company, it will not allow you to say or do anything that harms its brand — at or outside work. If you transgress and attract controversy — whether for cracking a joke, a Facebook like, or a political post on TikTok, you can be shamed, sacked, and blacklisted.
In the twenty-first century, major corporations have become the most powerful institution in the world — more powerful than many nations. That unchecked, anti-democratic power is reflected in the gaming of the political system, the weakening of governments, and the repressive control of the lives of employees. While their behaviour has deteriorated, corporations have invested heavily in ethically washed brands, claiming to be saving the planet and doing good. As Josh Bornstein argues, we would not tolerate a government that censored, controlled, and punished us in this way, so why do we meekly accept the growing authoritarianism of the companies that we work for?
Josh Bornstein is an award-winning lawyer specialising in employment and labour-relations law who has successfully sued a lot of badly behaved corporations, cornered the market in representing sacked rabbis, and acted for employees who were sacked for expressing political views. His articles and essays have appeared in Australia’s major media outlets, and he is a contributing author to The Wages Crisis in Australia: what it is and what to do about it, published in 2018. He is a member of the board of the progressive think tank The Australia Institute and of the advisory board of the Centre for Employment and Labour Relations Law at the University of Melbourne. He is also a member of a sports disciplinary tribunal.
