Worker Complains After Being Fired For Refusing to Work Following 'Roe. v. Wade' Ruling: 'I'm In Mourning'

Worker Complains After Being Fired For Refusing to Work Following 'Roe. v. Wade' Ruling: 'I'm In Mourning'


A worker who describes himself as a “queer brown person” is complaining about being fired during “Pride Month” for refusing to come to work following the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade, claiming that he’s in “mourning.”

Michael Lopez was let go by the Universal Music Group as a production coordinator at Universal Music Enterprises, tried to shame the company last week in a LinkedIn post, saying that he is a “queer brown person” who was “fired during Pride month for speaking up in defense of abortion rights.”

“Last Friday, like countless other folks, I was devastated by the news of the supreme court’s attack on abortion rights,” Lopez wrote. “Paired with the flood of anti-queer and anti-trans legislation, it’s been hard to process how company’s [sic] expect us to be productive while our rights are being stripped away.”

As reported by Fox Business, Lopez said that every Friday, one of his tasks was to “process reports for upcoming releases,” noting that he was then supposed to email his work to a list containing 275 people. But following the high court’s ruling, he said he decided not to complete his assigned task and then proceeded to email co-workers to let them know.

“I didn’t do them today,” Lopez wrote in the email of the neglected work. “I’m in mourning due to the attack on people with uteruses in the US. Federally guaranteed access to abortion is gone.”

‘People with uteruses’ would be women, in case you were wondering.

“Vivendi and Universal Music Group must stop donating to anti-abortion, anti-queer and anti-trans politicians,” he wrote. “Politicians like Marsha Blackburn, Ken Buck, Victoria Spartz, etc. Or expect more unproductive days.”

“Yours in fury, Michael Lopez,” he wrote as he ended his rant.

Fox Business added:

Lopez wrote in the LinkedIn post that he received several supportive messages from other coworkers after he sent the email, and that a manager called to tell him to take the rest of the day off. He added that he believed there was a “good possibility” he would be fired based on the response he received from management.

He said he received a “surprise Zoom video chat with HR” the following Monday.

“I was being let go for (paraphrasing) ‘Not doing your job, disrupting the day of 275 people and poor judgment,’” Lopez wrote.

The fired worker then said he would send a follow-up email to the one he had previously sent to coworkers, informing them that he’d been let go from his position.

“Just got fired for this email from Friday, so they’re letting you know where they stand on employees speaking out on politicians that support marginalization for folks like me,” he wrote in the email.

“A brown queer person terminated during Pride month speaking in support of abortion rights. Seems like that’s exactly what America is all about right now,” Lopez complained.

He finished his LinkedIn post by noting that he did not speak for the company but only for himself and employees who will “suffer under these discriminatory laws.”


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