Scumbag Startup: "We fired Screwed Employee for cause."
Screwed Employee: "No you didn't! It was retaliation."
Scumbag Startup: "Sure we did. Look at what he/she posted publicly after leaving the company. Screwed Employee behaved similarly around the office and was negatively impacting the work environment."
When I said blow things up and make things public, I meant make all my communications with management and the company very out in the open, CC everybody.
That way, if they do fire you for cause, you have a paper trail, and you tend to keep a lid on their worst tendencies because then they have to justify their words/actions to their own employees.
No, you never escalate publicly, not to people outside the company. As long as everybody is CCed while the conversation is going on, they don't have a leg to stand on, since everything is factual.
This is before anything is really bad, but you are getting suspicious.
If you hire a lawyer, you're instantly at DEFCON 1. CCing all your teammates has plausible deniability, especially if they're in the same boat you are.
You're not trying to warn anybody here. You're raising a gigantic red flag saying "Hey this is happening to me. If this is happening to you too, let people know instead of just suffering in silence."
No, when you hire a lawyer and provide them documentation on what has transpired and is transpiring, you are just building an arsenal to be prepared in case of further escalation.
When you have your lawyer contact the company, even then, you aren't at DEFCON 1, though that is a significant escalation (or a response to one.)
When you file legal action against the company, then you are at DEFCON 1.
If you ever email your coworkers, and CC your boss/fellow employees that you've done so, you're at DEFCON 1.
That implies that legal action is imminent.
If you BCC your lawyer, or just save up the information for later, that doesn't escalate the situation quite as much and allows people to back down more.