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Donald_Trump credit Notions Capital (Flickr Creative Commmons).jpg"You're fired!" - Cyclist who gave Trump the middle finger gets the sack
A cyclist who gave President of the United States Donald Trump the middle finger as she rode alongside his motorcade on Virginia last week has been sacked from her job.
An image of the woman flipping the bird at Trump’s car, taken by a member of the White House press pool in Sterling, Virginia as the president headed for a round of golf, went viral on social media last month and was reported on by media around the world.
Lone cyclist responds to @POTUS motorcade shortly after departing Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Va. (Photo: @b_smialowski/@AFP) pic.twitter.com/MKM1kVIyTY
— Steve Herman (@W7VOA) October 29, 2017
> Cyclist flips Trump the bird as she joins motorcade procession
But now, Juli Briskman, aged 50, has revealed that her gesture of defiance against the president resulted in her being summarily dismissed from her job in marketing and communications with government contractor Akima.
She told the Huffington Post that last Monday, after the picture achieved worldwide notoriety, she told her employers that she was the cyclist pictured in the photo.
The following day she was sacked, ostensibly because she had used the image as her profile picture on Twitter and Facebook, in violation of Akima’s social media policy for its staff.
She explained: “They said, ‘We’re separating from you’. Basically, you cannot have ‘lewd’ or ‘obscene’ things in your social media. So they were calling flipping him off ‘obscene.’”
Virginia is what is termed an ‘employment-at-will’ state, where employers can terminate a worker’s employment at any time and on any grounds.
But Briskam, who had worked for Akima for six months, pointed out that a male co-worker who had called someone “a fucking Libtard asshole” on Facebook, where his profile included reference to the company, but he was not fired.
She said: “How is that any less ‘obscene’ than me flipping off the president? How is that fair?”
Referring to the moment she flipped the bird at Trump - formerly the host of US reality show The Apprentice, where he coined it's "You're fired!" catchphrase , the Democrat voter said: “He was passing by and my blood just started to boil.
“I’m thinking, DACA recipients are getting kicked out,” she said, referring to a programme protecting children arriving in the US as refugees.
“He pulled ads for open enrolment in Obamacare,” she continued. “Only one-third of Puerto Rico has power. I’m thinking, he’s at the damn golf course again.”
“I flipped off the motorcade a number of times.”
Briskman added that she had no regrets about what she did, saying: “In some ways, I’m doing better than ever.
“I’m angry about where our country is right now. I am appalled. This was an opportunity for me to say something.”
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
Latest Comments
- thax1 2 hours 54 min ago
Double points for that photo backdrop Mark1a, and for anyone that has a shelf bracket for their air duster canister.
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This risks turning me into a hanger and flogger....
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In SE London, psychopath riders are the majority of people on bicycles Oh dear! another festive stealth anti-cyclist ☃️
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Well, you know the BMW drivers' saying: knock that house (hospital, social housing, care home, hospital...) down, could save 30 seconds on the trip!
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I had the pleasure of owning two of the featured builders here, in my history. When I joined the Army in 1971, I took with me my curly Hetchins:...
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Could Siobhán paint it red and noone would notice it?
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To paraphrase Field of Dreams, "Build it right and they will come: and use it!"
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And a Happy Christmas to you, road.cc staff!
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34 comments
453,673 job offers (and I assume counting).
Faith in Americans somewhat restored.
They should of shot her, claiming she appeared to have a hand gun.
Typical Trumpy fan. Are you a Russian bot ?
"Should have"....
cunt
See you in court.. its called freedom of speech
She must have a massive case for unfair dismissal
I don't see it myself. She changed her profile picture to a 'lewd' one which wasn't allowed according to the social media policy that she'd agreed to. Unfortunately, sticking up a middle finger can be argued as being 'lewd', so I can't see that she'd win.
As much as I can't stand Trump, I don't have much sympathy for her. She would have been fine if she hadn't tried to capitalise on her fame by changing her profile pic. (A narcisstic response to a narcisstic president.)
I reckon the motorcade got off pretty lightly with a little birdie. It's more deserving of a full moon in m opinion, but on a bike that's more up Danny Mac Askill's way than something for us mere mortals to attempt.
If you could get fired for making obscene gestures at SUVs, well I guess there would be a lot of unemployed cyclists.
Very true. I'd certainly be one of them. Getting fired for what she did would be worth it, though.
UK employers can bin you for anything within the first 2 years of employment, so long as it's not because of a protected characteristic such as sex, race, religion, disability etc If you're a white male you're fuc£ed.
Which is, AFAIA, complete bollocks. The Daily Fail is over there >>>>>>
The only automatic unfair dismissal categories, regardless of employment duration, are here (there's another more complete legalese link but I can't be bothered to find it again, I suspect you wouldn't read it anyway, and this appears to be pretty much the same) : eg pregnancy , whistleblowing, health and safety..
https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/work/problems-at-work/employment-tribu...
Other than that, the 2 yr qualifying period (1 yr before april 2012) applies regardless and your 'protected characteristics' list is nonsense.
The only difference as far as discrimination is concerned is the *size* of the award, and that is determined by a tribunal (and presumably intended to be a punitive measure as far as the employer is concerned).
In any case, companies tend to deal with a clear unfair dismissal situation via a 'compromise agreement ' - sometime even if in the case of redundancy too, 'cos it's cleaner (been there, got t-shirt etc) : essentially, you sign a contract to say you'll accept £xyz to not take the company to court for unfair dismissal. So you can still be unfairly dismissed as one of those categories (or not, as the case may be), it's up to the compnay to bung you enough cash to make it not worth your while.
( FWIW, 'white males' can still be discriminated against, the list is here:
https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/law-and-courts/discrimination/about-di... )
Her LinkedIn profile says 'Juli has excellent communications skills'... I'd say that's just about right.
And yet Trump is the worst person ever to do his job, regularly posts insulting and inflammatory content on Twitter, openly admits groping women whilst others are vilified for similar acts, lies, suppresses free speech, dot dot dot, dot dot dot
I really hope he tries to fire Robert Mueller.
If there isn't a cycling hall of fame that comes with a large prize, there ought to be, and she would be first recipient.
What got me was the employment law in Virginia, where you can apparently be sacked for anything anytime. Wonder how soon that will get to the UK?
Those employment laws give some brexiters wet dreams .....
That's pretty much the case in the private sector here already. Irrespective of employment law - if an employer wants rid of you, in the majority of cases it's trivial to Trump up (no pun intended) some bullshit that let's them give you the pump. It's just your appetite for a fight as an employee that determines whether or not you contest it.
She seems the type that have their eggs frozen while putting their careers first. And when they've got fat arses and can't get a partner, they conceive in a lab.
Given that she's fifty, etc...
hooray for her!
you're a twat.
Valbrona, you are a massive twat!
You are a nasty piece of work who should just fuck off to the pages of the daily mail where you belong.
You're a massive bellend mate. Clearly you need to fuck off.
Oh hi Donald, get back to your day job.
Probably better if he doesn't, given the colossal clusterfuck he's making of it...
You seem the type to make offensive presumptions about women based on their arse from 100 yards. Wouldn’t surprise me if that’s the closest you’ve ever been allowed to a woman.
You are a total shit.
A cowardly shit that won't even come and
fight backdefend their position or apologise for their misjudgement.Given all the recent publicity about the sexist attitudes prevalent in the workplace, and attitudes to women in society generally, this sort of misogynistic rubbish makes me shudder. Is there any form of moderation on this blog at all? Other than those contributors that speak out against what amounts to something not far removed from hate-speech?
Given that she's fifty, her kids are probably grown up
.
I think they should take her kids into care.
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