Swear At Your Boss And Get Away With It

Our offices here at WROK is full of balloons, puppies, flowers, good vibes, and a community spirit. No one would ever want to toss profanities in the direction of someone else.

However, if your place of employment has a higher tension level and you feel like letting it fly toward the boss every now and then...well, I have good news. In a pair of recent cases, the National Labor Relations Board has ruled against businesses who fired workers who used profanity in the workplace. Swear at your boss and get away with it!

In one case, the NLRB ruled against a boss at an auto repair shop that had fired an employee:

...who had called him an "a--hole" and "f---ing crook" and similar insults during an office meeting to discuss a wage dispute. The NLRB said that owner had instigated the incident by telling the employee that if he didn't like the pay, he could work elsewhere. That was an "implied threat" of firing, according to the board.

The NLRB ordered the employer to rehire the employee and pay him for lost wages dating back to 2008.

In the second case, again the NLRB ruled against a boss at a Starbucks in New York:

That case involved a Manhattan barista who was a vocal union supporter. He was fired in 2005 after he came into the store he worked at on his off hours to engage in a union protest. He then became involved in an altercation with a customer who was also a Starbucks manager from a different store. The worker told the other manager "You can go f--- yourself" in front of customers, among other things.

The board ruled that in their eyes, Starbucks' real reason for firing the worker was his pro-union activity not his pro-profanity activity. The NLRB ordered the employer to rehire the employee and pay him for lost wages dating back to 2005(!).

So, while I don't recommend trying it without a back-up plan there's now precedent that says you can swear at your boss...and get away with it!