The Citizens United Supreme Court ruling is mostly known for declaring unconstitutional the prohibition against corporations spending money on behalf of candidates. But it also has allowed companies to campaign directly to their employees; in much the same way that employees can talk to each other about politics, it is now legal for an employer to talk to an employee about politics. That makes me a bit nervous, but I can at least understand the argument.
But when it comes to politics, there is a difference between campaigning and coercion. Campaigning is good. Coercion is bad. Campaigning is necessary; it allows candidates to talk to the people, and encourages the people to talk to each other. Coercion is destructive; it undermines the entire principal of a free and fair electoral process. Anytime an employer is talking to an employee about politics, you have to keep an eye on that line–which is why the ruling makes me nervous. But I do believe that it is possible for an employer to have a non-coercive discussion of politics with an employee about politics; just like I have seen employers have non-coercive discussions about romance, race, gender, immigration, and many other potentially controversial topics.
Unfortunately, a few employers have already enthusiastically leaped well across that line. They have attempted to blackmail their employees into voting for a candidate, and in the spirit of the Citizens United ruling, those employers ought to be charged, in criminal court, for interfering with the democratic process–just like you or I would be charged if we attempted to blackmail our neighbors to vote in a particular way.
For instance, CEO David Siegel of Westgate Resorts told 7,000 employees “The economy doesn’t currently pose a threat to your job. What does threaten your job, however, is another four years of the same presidential administration.”
If you don’t think this is black-mail, well, just imagine if he had said the same thing about an inter-office romance: ”The economy doesn’t currently pose a a threat to your job. What does threaten your job, however, is if my secretary, Jenny, continues to refuse to sleep with me.”
I know, some of you are objecting that they aren’t equivalent. He might truly believe that a Romney Administration will be better for his business than an Obama Administration; doesn’t he have a right to tell his employees that? Actually, no, he doesn’t. Because it might also be true that Jenny’s rejection of him will cause him to make poor decisions and lead the company into ruin. But it is Jenny’s right to make her decision free from that burden; her decision to date her boss cannot be coerced by the threat of layoffs. In the same way, the employees have the right to vote free from the coercion of the threat of layoffs; whether the CEO believes those layoffs will be necessary is immaterial.
The alternative is that our society ceases to function as a true democracy; instead, votes become the effective property of employers, and our country becomes a true oligarchic society. That should not be allowed to happen, which is why the Justice Department should make a couple high-profile examples of Mr Siegel and any other employer who attempts to coerce their employees to vote in a particular way.
Should an employer be able to tell it’s employees, “as you know, about 50% of our operating budget comes from government grants. If Proposition X passes, it will forbid the government from making those grants and we will lose 50% of our business. With such a dramatic decrease in business, we will have to close 50% of our factories in order to make ends meet. Please bear that in mind as you vote this year for propositions”?
No.
1) The statement “we will lose 50% of our business… therefore we will have to close 50% of our factories” is an educated guess, at best. An accurate statement is “we will lose 50% of our current business, and therefore will have to close 50% of our factories unless we can make up some or all of that revenue in other ways”. The future is uncertain and unpredictable, and to assume that any election result will cause a necessary and immediate need to terminate employees without any ability to change that course of action is almost always going to be either false or, even worse, self-fulfilling.
2) If the connection actually were an outright certainty, the employees with equal certainly wouldn’t need to be reminded of it. (For instance, if the issue were a local school bond to pay for teacher salaries.)
3) Even if the connection were an outright certainty, and their were a pressing need to allow the employers to speak in such a way, the damage to the country for allowing employers to blackmail their employees to vote in a particular way easily outweighs any benefit of allowing this kind of speech.
“the employees with equal certainly wouldn’t need to be reminded of it.”
I think you vastly overestimate the political knowledge of most voters. For example, the University of California just sent out an email to its employees with the statement:
“As you probably recall, The Regents last summer took the extraordinary step of endorsing Proposition 30, noting that should it fail our budget will be reduced by $250 million. In addition, $125 million currently in the budget to ensure no increases in tuition through fiscal year 2012-13 will be forfeited.”
UCLA’s employees include a diverse array of employees including janitors, secretaries, HR representatives, students, athletics trainers, professors, chefs, and accountants. And that’s just scratching the surface. A huge number, including myself, are not familiar with the intricacies of prop 30 and would not have been aware of the particular implications for our place of work had we not gotten that email. If there’s anything we should know about voters, it’s that they DON’T know the details that affect them.
I agree that blackmail is bad. I don’t think providing information is bad. What’s interesting here is that you’re interpreting certain comments as blackmail, and I’m interpreting them as providing information. If the CEO were to say “if Obama wins, I’m releasing your medical records and pictures of you drunk from the last Christmas party” that would be blackmail. If the CEO says “If Obama wins, I foresee that it will hurt the company, and may lead to layoffs” that’s providing employees information that they should know before voting.
If I’m voting on tax policy, I want my accountant to tell me how various outcomes are likely to affect my taxes (even if it’s not certain – I could always change tax brackets) so that I can make an informed decision. I want my health care provider to let me know how it will affect my care. I don’t see why I wouldn’t want my employer to let me know how it’s likely to affect the health of the company I work for, and I don’t think it’s blackmail if she does so. It’s just one more piece of information to help me make my decision.
Information is fine, as long as it’s true information. But there is a difference between information and speculation.
“If Obama wins, I foresee that it will hurt the company, and may lead to layoffs” is NOT an informative statement. That is a highly speculative statement, that the employer may be forced to take a possible course of action in the future, if a series of events fell a certain way, the first of which is the reelection of Obama. If you define that as an informative statement, then you might as well define as an informative statement “If tomorrow is Wednesday, then Aliens will land and kill billions, and I will be forced to withhold pudding.”
Moreover, “If Obama wins, I foresee that it will hurt the company, and may lead to layoffs” is certainly not designed to “help me make a decision”. It is designed to bully me into voting a certain way–and bullying someone into voting a certain way is illegal behavior.
Now, if a CEO says “Prop A would cut $200 million from Program X, all of which goes to our company”: that is an informative statement, and has the virtue of being true. That is information a voter can actually use, and I can understand going that far. But no further.
I think there’s a huge difference between the layoffs and the alien example. If then statements can be informative. The fact that the “if” part may not occur doesn’t change that – it’s the reason there’s an “if” clause to begin with. The fact that it’s speculative is also not a problem so long as it’s a reasonable speculation based on the available evidence.
Any number of government organizations put out ads “if you smoke, you could get lung cancer”, “if you drink and drive, you could get in a car accident”, etc. Most smokers don’t get lung cancer. Most drunk drivers don’t get in accidents. But in both cases, we accept those as informative statements because there is good reason to believe that engaging in those activities increases the risk of those outcome.
In the case of the CEO – the CEO has done economic analysis, and believes, possibly with cause, that Obama wining will increase the odds that the company will be hurt and layoffs will ensue. The CEO may be wrong, but then, anybody could be wrong about anything – it’s still information to know that the CEO (who understands economics better than I do) thinks that will be the case.
The alien example is patently absurd on the surface. But for what it’s worth, I don’t think it should be illegal for a CEO to send out such an email, even though he’d be widely ridiculed for it.
You call it bullying, I call it persuading – the specific language changes the connotation quite a bit. Of course the message is designed to influence behavior – but that’s not illegal. It’s a slippery slope to define bullying – if you put people in jail for cases that are ambiguous in regards to whether they’re bullying or providing information, then it will have a chilling effect on freedom of political speech.
Dick Cheney has been heard saying that if democrats win, then rogue states will possess nuclear weapons, terrorists will be emboldened, and Americans will be less safe. Are we to prevent him from being able to state his opinion like that in an interview? I think of that as more bullying than the CEO email, and yet it’s clearly freedom of speech to allow him to say it…
So, first of all I don’t actually believe that “the CEO has done economic analysis”. Certainly there is no evidence in any of these cases of that fact.
Second, you are missing the point that the CEO himself is the one doing the laying off. Layoffs are not an exogenous force; they are an action taken by real people–in particular, the same people sending out the memos. Which is why it’s a threat. I mean, it might be true that if Romney won the election, I would be so angry that I would walk around my neighborhood beating up people with a bat. But warning them beforehand of this fact is voter intimidation, and clearly illegal.
Imagine a professor telling his classroom “If a beautiful young woman does not sleep with me this semester, I’m going to be pretty depressed all term, and that doesn’t bode well for anyone’s final grades.” That may be a true statement–but it would still get him fired, and rightfully so. Simply the fact that someone believes a statement to be true, does not mean that it is okay to say it, especially if that person is in a position of power, and if the statement can reasonably be interpreted as a threat.