When bosses tell you how to vote…
What if your manager told you whom you should vote for?
This isn’t far fetched. During my many years covering workplace issues, I’ve heard a few cases of employers trying to sway the voting preferences of their employees. But Wal-Mart takes the cake.
The company actually held formal meetings with employees and talked about how it would be better to vote Republican than Democratic.
First off, I think it’s a sad commentary if workers for any company choose a president based on what they’re bosses say. I have more faith in all of you out there.
But, Wal-Mart may have stepped over legal boundaries with this latest move, one in a series of attempts by the retail giant to derail unionization of its workers.
This from the Wall Street Journal law blog:
Labor groups — including American Rights at Work, the AFL-CIO and WakeUpWalMart.com — are filing the letter with the FEC (Federal Election Commission), asking the Commission to determine whether the company “made prohibited corporate expenditures” by organizing meetings across the country to warn employees that a Democratic president would back legislation known as the Employee Free Choice Act, which the company opposes. Both labor and business agree the legislation would make it easier for the labor movement to organize more workers.
Basically Obama voted for the Act and McCain voted against it, hence the urging by Wal-Mart managers to vote for a Republican this fall.
During the meetings with workers, Wal-Mart honchos supposedly gave employees bogus information on what the Act would mean, including telling them they’d see a cut in pay and would be forced to join unions even if only a small percentage of workers wanted to organize, if the law passed.
Many labor law experts believe the Election Commission will probably end up investigating Wal-Mart’s behavior, and this whole episode will likely drag on.
But in the meantime, workers everywhere have to start educating themselves when it comes to political choices and the laws politicians support.
Here is a link to the legislation.
And here’s a great, balanced overview of the Act written last year by Dale Russakoff at the Washington Post.
I’m emphasizing balanced because all of us have to be aware of where information comes from when it comes to proposed laws. Reading about this Act on the AFL-CIO’s website, or the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s website, will likely give you a slanted view of what the bill will mean to you. Be aware of the endless sources we have on the Web and read stories that offer some well-researched information from both sides of an issue.
And please, please, please, don’t rely on your managers to tell you how to vote! Keep democracy alive, be the boss of your own political decisions.
August 15th, 2008 at 10:28 am
I find the whole subject of politics at the office interesting, especially in the context of social networking. I’m pretty opinionated when it comes to politics, and I grappled whether I should post my leanings on twitter, facebook, etc - because I think about politics a lot. I’m doing it because this is who I am and I want to be authentic, especially since there is a high-stakes election in progress. I think it helps that I work with a company that encourages people to blog - glad to see that more companies are doing that.
August 15th, 2008 at 10:38 am
I think it’s great Laurie that you want to get your political thoughts out there. While it sounds like your employer is open minded, there can be risks for some employees. An employer can legally fire you if you make your political opinions known and they don’t like those opinions. I wrote a column on this issue. (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22900670/)
But American workers shouldn’t run scared when it comes to making their voices heard. A reasoned political debate can only help us all, no?
August 20th, 2008 at 3:51 am
When our local union body gave me permission to start our own website and blog, the first citeria was that no one outside of the union body acquire access to it. Everyone required their own password and unique identity. We did this because their was very little communication and we had 70 people spread out over 12 locations. It was an absolute success. Until one of the longest tenured members decided what was written about one member of management, who did have strong political connections, allowed the individual access with their id and password. Within days, all of management had looked over every aspect and every comment. The sad part is, the site and blog improved moral and hence improved the over all quality of all work performed. It was up for two years. Because of this incident, the site was shut down by our larger union. There was no legal pursuit that would have made any sense since it would made the union member possibly be crinimally prosecuted. It had to be dropped. We began initial negotiations on our new contract this last May. We have until July of ‘09 to ratify before our old contract is up. The chief negotiator is the man with the political ties. The suit to remove him from that position will cost our local at least $50000. What is ironic is the vast majority of the negotiating body are from the same party affiliation. And of them, unaminously are opposed to the negotiater taking part in any aspect of our future. No one in the last three years since these events happened has been reprimanded or terminated. Prior to this, no one could do anyhting right in management’s opinion and about 1/3 of our production time became grievance related. To really make things interesting, according to our international union, one of the largest, this same thing happens all the time, and with almost identical reasons. We all have an opinion. To say what you think, will always be fleeting somehow. To type it and leave it in a permanent record, it will be read and reread and bite someone’s butt again and again. Perhaps politics should stay out of labor unions altogether.