Michael Lopez is a graphic designer whose work can be found at www.postlopez.com. Originally from San Diego, now living in Los Angeles with their cartoonist spouse Rachel Dukes and 2 cats. They are Chicanx and non-binary.

Michael Lopez also shared the below post on LinkedIn and it went viral. This is his first and only interview about the situation and we are proud that he decided to share his story on our platform.

I'm a queer brown person and I was fired during Pride month for speaking up in defense of abortion rights at Universal Music Enterprises (UMe) (a subsidiary of Universal Music Group).

Last Friday, like countless other folks, I was devastated by the news of the supreme court's attack on abortion rights. Paired with the flood of anti-queer and anti-trans legislation, it's been hard to process how company's expect us to be productive while our rights are being stripped away. Especially when our company has been donating to several of these politicians (link in comments).

Every Friday, one of my tasks was to process reports for upcoming releases. This is an email list that goes out to 275 people. I don't know who's on it, I just knew it was the email list with the most people that I had access to. So I sent the following message:

Subject line: UMe Schedules
Message:

I didn't do them today.

I'm in mourning due to the attack on people with uteruses in the US. Federally guaranteed access to abortion is gone.

Vivendi and Universal Music Group must stop donating to anti-abortion, anti-queer and anti-trans politicians. Politicians like Marsha Blackburn, Ken Buck, Victoria Spartz, etc. Or expect more unproductive days.

Yours in fury,
-Michael Lopez

The immediate aftermath was several supportive emails from other co-workers and a manager calling to tell me to take the rest of the day off. I appreciate the love from my coworkers, and I figured, based on management's response, there was a good possibility I might be fired as a result. But I was proud of letting allies know that our company has been donating to these politicians.

Around 9:30-ish today, I got a surprise Zoom video chat with HR. I was being let go for (paraphrasing) "Not doing your job, disrupting the day of 275 people and poor judgement." I was told to log out and that a courier would be there to pick up my laptop from my apartment within the hour.

Anticipating that I'd get shut out of my computer very soon, I sent a follow up to the email list:

Hey ya’ll,

Just got fired for this email from Friday, so they’re letting you know where they stand on employees speaking out on politicians that support marginalization for folks like me.

A brown queer person terminated during Pride month speaking in support of abortion rights. Seems like that’s exactly what America is all about right now.

Peace out,
-Michael Lopez

I don't speak for my former company. I speak for myself and employees that will suffer under these discriminatory laws.

Their actions today, their silence on Friday are indicative of their motivations. Profit at all costs. Solidarity, only if it's profitable. And above all of that is maintaining the status quo and saying fuck you to the working class.

Be Defiant with Jose Antonio Tijernio

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