“I’ve been working on this heap a long time. Way before the war. We refit and rebuilt ships. Best in the galaxy. Then came the Empire. And engineers became scrappers. The workers just started getting worked. But we all know the truth. We’re just too afraid to say it. To the Empire, we’re all just expendable.“
Prauf, Jedi: Fallen Order
The expository first level of Jedi: Fallen Order takes place on the world of Bracca, a junkyard planet covered in derelict vessels waiting for salvage and demolition. The story finds our protagonist, padawan-in-hiding Cal Kestis, living as a scrapper and chumming around with his colleague, a kindly older alien named Prauf. After Cal instinctively uses the Force to save Prauf from a harrowing industrial accident, their crew is rounded up for inspection by a squad of Imperial Jedi hunters led by the Second Sister. When Prauf is foolhardy enough to stand up to the Second Sister and deliver the above-quoted speech to his fellow coworkers, Prauf is subjected to an extreme form of retaliatory workplace discipline: let’s call it “termination.”
In a less fascist society, Prauf’s challenge to the conditions of his employment may have been subject to legal protections that would have prevented or provided a remedy for his termination. Fortunately, issue-spotting this fact pattern is infinitely less difficult than catching a rope to cross a gap in Fallen Order…
Free Speech
First, the Second Sister’s style of employee discipline may have violated Prauf’s constitutional rights. Prauf’s dialogue implies that the Empire had taken control of the Bracca scrapyards, which may have transformed the employer into a governmental entity. The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution prevents the government from abridging the right to free speech, subject to some very limited exceptions. While the First Amendment does not apply to private employers, public employees enjoy full constitutional free speech protections in their government workplace.
Obviously, an authoritarian regime like the Empire would not extend free speech rights to anyone, including the regime’s employees. But if Prauf had been an employee of a more democratic governmental agency or other public employers, disciplinary retaliation against him for expressing his views would violate fundamental constitutional rights.
Raising concerns about workplace safety
Other than constitutional free speech protections, alternative sources of labor law could have protected Prauf’s challenge to the working conditions at the Bracca scrapyards. For example, Prauf’s remarks about employees’ expendability and about workers being “worked” may be construed as complaints about the hazardous working conditions faced by scrappers, particularly in light of his earlier peril and Cal’s improvident heroics.
The federal Occupational Safety and Health Act protects employees from employer retaliation for engaging in protected activities under that statute. Specifically, OHSA prohibits employers from discharging or discriminating against employees who have filed complaints or have testified in OHSA-related investigations. 29 U.S.C. § 660(c)(1). This protection extends to employees who express concerns to management about occupational safety. 29 C.F.R. § 1977.9(c); see Marshall v. Springville Poultry Farm, Inc., 445 F. Supp. 2 (M.D. Pa. 1977) (adopting Labor Department’s regulatory interpretation that complaint to employer is protected activity for purposes of § 660(c)(1)). Thus, if Prauf were in any condition to do so after his termination, he could certainly file a complaint with the Department of Labor, which could then seek a remedy on his behalf for the employer’s retaliatory conduct in violation of OSHA.
“Mutual aid and protection”
Additionally, the recent Rise of the Resistance novel, which takes place decades after the events in Jedi: Fallen Order, tells us that the workers of Bracca’s scrapyards are unionized by the Bracca Guild of Scrappers, Union Local 476. But it seems unlikely that the Empire would permit workers to organize, so the Bracca workforce was probably not unionized at the time of Prauf’s speech.
In any event, the National Labor Relations Act protects the right of workers at both unionized and non-unionized private workplaces to engage in “concerted activity . . . for mutual aid and protection.” 29 U.S.C. § 157. This provision of the NLRA does not require current union representation of the employee and covers a broad range of activities that are focused on improving collective terms and conditions of employment. See, e.g., Modern Motors v. NLRB, 198 F.2d 925, 926 (8th Cir. 1952). Importantly, the NLRA does not protect an individual’s expression of a personal complaint about an employer, even if the complaint is addressed to a group of fellow employees, unless the evidence suggests that the speaker intended the complaint to inspire others to organize the workforce to improve working conditions. Mushroom Transp. Co. v. NLRB, 330 F.2d 683, 685 (3d Cir. 1964) (recognizing that preliminary discussions may amount to concerted activity if the speaker intended group action as a consequence).
Here, the employer would likely argue that Prauf’s speech to his coworkers about their poor treatment was not intended to inspire collective action, but was rather intended as a smokescreen to distract the Inquisitors from their search for Cal. While Cal would personally consider Prauf’s conduct as “aid and protection,” it may be a stretch to characterize this as a preliminary discussion of organizing their workforce.
On the other hand, Prauf could argue that the Inquisitor’s intimidation of the scrappers was the final straw that inspired him to speak up and assert their collective rights on behalf of the group: “But we all know the truth. We’re just too afraid to say it. To the Empire… we’re all just expendable.”
Prauf’s termination is just the first step in Cal’s heroic journey, but finding the courage to speak up and resist oppressive conditions is at the center of all Star Wars stories. Prauf embodies the same heroism you would expect of any Jedi… and in a way that is a bit more relatable to all of us working stiffs here on Earth.