And yet ladies night is still a thing.

You could try to argue that, yes. But again its up to the dismissed party to show that it was a hostile work environment and that might also run into issues where the employees are allowed to express their feelings if those expressions don't meet some particular definition of harassment.

It might be possible but its not trivial.

if the pressure came from the board you might be right, if all the pressure was coming from the calls for boycot or from his underlings (who have no authority to dismiss the CEO) then they don't really mean anything. You would have a hard time convincing someone that the company is at fault because the low level employees hated the CEO.

You may be right about the actions of the board, though it might be hard to prove that depending on how they went about it. If there isn't a paper trail it becomes his word against theirs.

It may not be universal but that doesn't mean its not incredibly common.

Teenagers are usually idiots though, they don't usually have the foresight to disguise themselves.

Thats the disturbing part!

Thanks, now all I can picture is Wil Wheaton in a luchador mask

I can comprehend it, its just too damn much work to sift through run on sentences. What is sad is that the person who wrote this claims to be a journalist. I figured it was a developer writing on their blog which would be forgivable.

Every online reference to it on dictionary sites lists it as a UK idiom or a UK and Australian idiom. That you have encountered it before as an America does not mean that it is in remotely common usage.

Further, not knowing an idiom does not make one illiterate. Maybe try not being so much of an asshole next time.

it is followed by an actual error which probably added to the confusion. I can usually work out the meaning of an idiom from context but given there was a mistake 2 words later it was just as likely that there was a missing word or 2 elsewhere in the sentence.

I am an american and I watch a lot of british TV which allowed me to figure out that it wasn't a typo or a missing word but just an idiom. Not everyone else is familiar with the british tendency to drop words from phrases to make common idioms ("Would do" for instance). It certainly doesn't help that there is an actual mistake immediately after it.

if the phrase was "put down their tools" that would not be idiomatic and would be generally understood. "downed their tools" is an idiom... the closest use for "downed" that I can think of to an American would be if someone "downed their beer" which is to say finished a beer quickly.

To say "I put down my dog" means you killed your dog, you aren't killing your tools if you "down your tools". Downtown has nothing to do with this use either.

Practically unreadable. It is far too long and contains many run-on sentences. Further it is filled with jargon that is not explained.

Part of the problem here is "downing their tools" which is an idiom that is not used in American english. While I was able to take a guess at what it meant it is confusing and awkward to those who are not familiar with the idiom.

Not doubting you, but can I get a reference to that? I don't recall him specifically stating that during the campaign. I guess I kind of expected that he took a states rights approach to it but it has been a while. I would be very interested to see that.