Facebook gives employees the thumbs up to protest on International Workers' Day

Employees with receive no penalty for skipping work.
 By 
Nicole Gallucci
 on 
Facebook gives employees the thumbs up to protest on International Workers' Day
JoAnne Bellamy supporting immigrants during a rally in Washington Square Park. Credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

International Workers' Day is right around the corner and this year Facebook is giving its employees full permission to protest President Trump.

According to Bloomberg, the company announced via an internal forum on April 14 that employees would be free to take time off to participate in the many protests challenging Trump's immigration policies being held on May 1.

"At Facebook, we're committed to fostering an inclusive workplace where employees feel comfortable expressing their opinions and speaking up," a Facebook spokesperson told Mashable. "We support our people in recognizing International Workers’ Day and other efforts to raise awareness for safe and equitable employment conditions."

The policy reportedly applies regardless of whether or not workers notify the company of time off ahead of time, and Facebook has also promised to re-evaluate ties to vendors in charge of the campus' security, janitorial, and other staff members, should they break the law protecting workers' rights to peacefully organize.

Though Facebook found itself at the center of the dramatic Fake News revolution during Trump's election, the company has actively taken steps to fight the spread of misinformative articles on its site. Back in February, Facebook also unveiled a bot to help Messenger users easily find protests near them.

The social media platform is just one of many tech companies that have expressed disapproval surrounding Trump's immigration policies since inauguration.

In January, over 2,000 Google employees walked out on their jobs to protest Donald Trump's executive order banning refugees from select Muslim-majority nations, and back in February, Facebook, along with more than 90 tech companies filed an amicus brief to oppose Trump's "Muslim travel ban."

More recently in March, 50 companies like Airbnb, Lyft, Pinterest, and Square came together to file a brief against Trump's revised travel ban that was blocked by a Hawaiian judge.

Correction Apr 18 1:43 p.m. PT: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that the “company has publicly acted against the president.” The policy sanctioning protest by employees has previously been in force and is not a new development related to the current administration.

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Nicole Gallucci

Nicole is a Senior Editor at Mashable. She primarily covers entertainment and digital culture trends, and in her free time she can be found watching TV, sending voice notes, or going viral on Twitter for admiring knitwear. You can follow her on Twitter @nicolemichele5.

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