"This article identifies the ‘worker expression' problem as not merely a manifestation of the age-old conflict between workers and employers, but a contradiction at the heart of labour law itself: between what the article calls the ‘whole self' approach on the one hand, and the ‘work-self' approach on the other. Protecting workers from sanctions for expression fits with the desire for ‘freedom from work', and thus a ‘work-life' (or ‘work-self') balance. On the other hand, expression can be part of ‘bringing one's whole self to work'. The worker expression problem creates conflict between and within these rationales – for one person's ‘whole self' may turn out to be incompatible with another's. The ‘whole self' attitude encourages people to both identify intersubjective dignitary harms in the workplace, and to engage in expressive acts which may generate such harms, potentially pitting workers against each other. This also drives the exclusion of the ‘whole self' of a worker with beliefs to which managers, colleagues or customers object from the workplace, either through suspension or dismissal. This creates a ‘HR hokey-cokey', whereby workers bring their whole selves into work, and are then told to keep their whole selves out… Labour law theory and practice in many jurisdictions is being ‘shaken all about' by this problem."

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