Hi all, I’ve been considering joining the PCUSA or PLS, but am afraid of being discriminated against when finding a job or internship. I’m wondering if anyone here can provide their personal experience with being in a communist or socialist party in the USA, and whether or not I should wait until after finding a job to join one?
Obviously you don’t have to tell any prospective employer anything about what orgs you’re in, so I’d continue and not woryy about it too much.
Its important too to keep different social media accounts for work and not-work, and definitely don’t add any suspect coworkers to your personal ones. I was in a bigger city, and would often be at protests, and would occasionally worry that someone from work would find some of the pictures and connect the dots, and I was prepared to deny it if it was the case. None of these orgs have public member lists, so you’re safe there.
Once you start working and want to unionize your coworkers, that’s another story ;)
Unless you’re looking for work in fields that require stringent background checks, you don’t have much to worry about. Your employer isn’t going to pay for a FBI background check on you, nor bother with the paperwork of it. But, as Muad said, make sure you keep your social media accounts separate, or alternatively keep your accounts super private and be cage-y about who you accept requests from. If your employer really cares about what you’re up to online, there are services they can use that will make printouts of everything you’ve ever done on your social media accounts (though, the content has to be public or accessible to the service.), and it’s not fun to be pulled into your superior’s office to be lectured about the memes you used to like when you were 15.
Other than that, your employer and co-workers won’t know dip damn about you unless you tell them. They can search all they want, but they’ll only find the public stuff.
Oh, I forgot to mention that in my state party affiliation is public info, so I would think it would show up on a basic background check though I could be wrong. If not then I might be joining an org soon
Perhaps it would be useful for you to do some googling on that, and some searching for examples of the relevant laws before you make up your mind. Where I live party information is private, but union information isn’t, so I’m not afraid of being a communist in my line of work, but I am afraid of unionizing, even though I could lose my licensing for either.
You shouldn’t be divulging political affiliation on a job form, and it won’t come up on a background check as what they check are credit and criminal records
The only thing you should be worried about with joining any Communist organization is if you’re a noncitizen or a naturalized citizen for less than 5 years, as that can get you deported
Wow, this is something I did not know and had not considered. I’ve only been a US citizen for about 3 years so I would be at risk. Is there any articles you can send me to read up on this? Thank you so much.
