Speechless

Bruce Barry, Professor of Management and Sociology at Vanderbilt, has just published Speechless: The Erosion of Free Expression in the American Workplace.  Here's a summary:

In Speechless, Bruce Barry brings his expertise as a management scholar and civil libertarian to an in-depth examination of the state of free speech for American workers, both on and off the job.

He critiques a legal system that gives employers wide latitude to suppress worker expression, and argues that freedom of speech in the workplace is excessively and needlessly limited.  Barry advocates changes to the law and to management practice that would expand employees' expressive rights without jeopardizing the legitimate interests of employers.

Requiring employees to check fundamental rights at the workplace door, Barry concludes, has a chilling effect on the exercise of those rights both on and off the job, impairing the health of democracy and civil society.

This book is worth checking out.

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