Throwaway and I'll have to be a bit vague/change a few details because I'm worried about possible retaliation. This occured in the US.
TL;DR: Owner of a company is making everyone wear “Back The Blue” t-shirts and claiming it's the company uniform, then taking photos of employees in their shirts and threatening termination for those that don't comply.
The Long Version:
I recently started working at a company full time. Everything has been fine. I get along with the people I work with and my boss is pretty laid back. It's a pretty fun office, tbh, and they do a lot to keep morale up.
However the owner of the company is a bit off. He isn't there often (maybe comes in once every other week) and all operations are out of his hands. He just likes popping in to check on everything and give his 2 cents, but he's mostly hands off. He's also very right wing political and makes some pretty inappropriate comments that have nothing to do with our work. I'm fairly liberal, but I've never spoken up and just roll my eyes and shrug it off when he starts ranting about the latest Fox News talking point.
Well, two weeks ago, the owner comes in all excited with a few cardboard boxes and asks everyone to come to the conference room. He tells us that he's gotten us new uniforms for work (we'd never had uniforms before this, the office workers have only been told to wear business casual). He opens the box and starts passing out the shirts. Everyone got two shirts, which he expected us to wear everyday (which seems kind of gross unless you're doing laundry every other day, but not the point).
I get mine and unfold it to find a big American flag on the front with a blue stripe through the center, the company's name on the back and, underneath it, “Back The Blue”. Myself and multiple other co-workers cringed when we saw it. The mood in the room was a bit weird.
I talked to my boss afterward and she was uncomfortable with the shirts as well and told me she was completely blindsided by it. She told me she wouldn't enforce people wearing them each day, but to keep the shirt in my office so I could toss it on for days when the owner decided to pop by. I still wasn't super comfortable with that, but figured it was a compromise I could deal with.
Well, this past week, I missed the group chat message telling me the owner was here and wasn't wearing my shirt when he popped into my office. He asked why and I was honest with him and said I didn't feel comfortable wearing a politically charged shirt that I didn't quite agree with. He told me that it's the work uniform and that I had to wear it if I wanted to continue to work here. I was a bit taken aback and wasn't sure what my rights were regarding that type of thing, so I begrudgingly went to the restroom and changed into the work shirt.
Ten minutes later, the owner calls us all into the conference room and tells us all to get in a big group because he wants to get a photo of all of us in our new work uniforms. This really didn't sit right with me as I have no idea how this man plans to use these images and I'd be mortified if my friends or anyone at the places I volunteer saw me in that shirt. I ducked out and went back to my office without saying anything.
My boss told me that the owner noticed and then she gave me a look that leads me to believe that my job may be in jeopardy.
Is any of this legal? I'm sure they'll come up with some other reason to let me go if this could be a grey area, but I'm also curious if an employer can force employees to wear a politically charged shirt just by calling it a uniform.