2 words: "At-will employment." I empathize with their situation but sadly there's nothing they can do about this. Kind of naive trying to attempt this in a state like California.
Termination related to labor organization is illegal. However, recourse (for the employee) generally fails because of the time scales involved, with the inevitable failure to form a union, but the employer will have to deal with the fallout eventually.
That does not make it naive, and you should not further participate in making this self-fulfilling.
* your sexual orientation
* race
* veteran status
* political views
* not sleeping with your boss
* etc
Organizing a union is one of these "protected" reasons why you cannot be fired. Of course your employer can pick another reason and say that's why they are firing you, which is what it looks like this company did. Whether that defense will hold up in court is another matter entirely.
Although unionizing is protected, "at-will employment" also leaves a lot of gray areas that can be leveraged for an employer to justify a termination. For example insubordination. The employer can claim that an employee was being hostile and creating a stressful work environment.
But firing for labor organizing is an explicit prohibition in both California and Federal law (the federal prohibition was the basis of Damore’s NLRB complaint against Google, for a recent example that has gotten much HN attention.)
Replacing 5 is much more difficult and expensive.
Replacing most could be quite expensive and dangerous.
So, organizing could give leverage to employees to demand humane treatment even if it reduces profit for the employer. Even in at-will environment.
https://www.nlrb.gov/rights-we-protect/whats-law/employees/i...
> but sadly there's nothing they can do about this
Even if legally one has no options, you can still try to do something. Like raise awareness, etc.