Romney: OK for employers to influence employees' votes

You want to outlaw one party communicating something to another party.

That's free speech.

 

I think I agree with you, but it IS more complicated.

Employer telling employee if they vote for obama they will be layed off, is not fair. For at least 25% of the small business workforce that is simply not true either. Many peoples jobs are safe.

But lets focus on a situation more like my dads where i've displayed clearly how it is impossible for their job security not to be greatly threatened in 2014.

If people are voting based on what their boss wants, that is a contamination. People should vote for what they want and nobody else. Your vote should consider people of all walks of life. But ultimately the decision should be made entirely by you.

If my boss told me if Romney wins we might have to close shop, perhaps if i worked somewhere in the goverment or at a company receive substantial gov. subsidies. My job security would be threatened by Romney. I dont think i would feel "intimidated". I would certainly be in a dilemma. Obviously I'd like to keep my job, but I honestly feel for a variety of reasons that Obamas policies are bad for the private sector and the economy in general. I would be faced with a very difficult choice. I would not get everything i want, i would have to chose what was more important/feasible. Its hard to imagine anyones job not being the most important thing, i honestly cant say what i would do in that scenario.

All my employer would have to do would show me where Romney has said he will cut various subsidies. that would be enough for it not to be voter intimidation. Providing me with information, is free speech. Simply saying if you vote for Romney you could lose your job is voter intimidation when it comes from someone who has the ability to fire you.

My dad believes it is unethical and will not talk about politics at all with any of his employees. I don't know if I agree but it is a VERY fine line, between informing and threatening. Even when you put the raw numbers in peoples faces there will be many who chose not to believe, simply because it isnt what they want to hear.

Free-speech is free speech. When you employ someone that is a privilege and responsibility that will often place ethical limitations on you that super-cede your basic rights as a human being. When the boss speaks, hes not speaking as a human with inalienably rights, hes speaking as a company. Companies aren't entitled to the same set of rights that we all are as Americans.

It should be approached delicately, this is to protect the employers who are at an inherent power disadvantage in the employer-employee relationship. An owner who cares about and respects his employees as human beings and citizens will have to find an appropriate way to communicate what it is the company wants to say. Slapping Romney bumper stickers all over the place would be an example of what NOT to do.

But at some point the boss ends and the human begins. If an owner can clearly cross behind that line then he deserves his free speech and should say whatever he feels he needs to. Then anybody who's listening can decide for themselves if hes a dick or not. Same rules everybody plays by when they open their mouth.

 

should read; employees are at power disadvantage in employer employee relationship. sorry typo e vs r--so close on keyboard so far in context.

This is obviously because an employee would only chose to stop working because they are being treated unfairly. where as the employer can chose to fire based on a myriad of reasons some fair some not. The employee is forced to trust the employer more than the employer has to trust them.

 

So, if an employer wanted to "communicate" the church you should attend, or the race of the person you should marry, that would be acceptable under "free speech"?

 

if it's ok for union bosses to influence their members to vote for obama, it's ok to do the same for employers.

 

I belong to two unions and neither one tries to influence my vote.

 

In my professional life, I forecast gross margin for a big energy company. Reading the text of the law is not going to convince me that predicting the future is easy.

 

If they said any church you want and any race you want. Because anything else would be clear violations of discrimination laws. That wasnt apples to apples at all.

Here comes an extreme example so buckle up. What if your employer found out you were a Satanist, and came to you and said

"I don't know much about satanism but I have received complaints about you from some of your co-workers. They have reported you voicing some strong opinions on human interaction that are not congruent with the compassionate values we strive for as an organization. Some of your colleagues have accused me of creating a hostile work enviroment. I told them no one employee's opinion or value system is more important than the other and that none of the complaints were in my estimation harrasment, or any other violation of our employee code of conduct. However I would like to respectfully ask you for a personal favor, please refrain from conversing with these indivuals about anything not work related. You are a valued part of this company and I have gone to bat in your defense, but I cannot control lawsuits filed against me no matter how frivilous they might be, and i believe a little bit more discretion on your part could go a long way in protecting myself and our company from any potential lawsuits."

Is this an appropriate conversation? Or is this an employer trying to suppress an employees freedom of religion? I think even though this seems like an extreme example it does represent a little bit of the human element that small businesses can have a tough time planning for. Big companies have HR proffessionals and lawyers who can assist in dealing with many of these situations. But in a small business where the owner-employee relationship is alot more hands on, situations like this can become ethics nightmares for everyone involved.


My point is I dont think there is some list of off-limits topics for employers to converse with their employees about. I think you are wildy underestimating the nuances of discretion many good small business owners must use to respect their employees but also protect the companies profitability.

Religion, Race, Politics, I dont think many SBOs want to talk about this kind of stuff. Its certainly not what they went into business for, but when humans are involved these fickle topics have a funny way of popping up from time to time.

Its not okay for either to influence votes. I think giving the companies or unions stance on how the organization will have to adapt to pending policies of both partys can be done appropriately. From what i have seen many Union bosses do this inappropriately.

 

If you dont mind me asking, Is it possible for you to see what the companies net profit for a year is and divide that by the amount of people they employee domestically? I am curious about this type of thing with all companies. Im sure thats something your probably not allowed to answer even if its possible but I just thought i'd ask. Won't blame you at all if you refrain from commenting on that.


And I didnt mean to say predicting the future was easy, It isnt. I would imagine my dad could greatly benefit from the help of an analytics professional. I meant if a company nets $2000 per employee and each of those employees will result in a $3000 penalty, IMO it becomes quite simple to forecast a loss. Forecasting anything else given that data..now that would be the trick. So the act of prediction is not easy, i was just saying in this situation the outcome seems quite obvious. A major change in company structure would appear to be necessary

 

yes, one person saying something to someone else is acceptable

 

The way you present the case. It appears quite plausible that your Father’s company will come at a crossroads that will lead to low paying jobs being sent overseas. But like another poster pointed out, it’s a matter of privatizing profits and socializing debt. Is that the right model? Anytime Government enacts policy changes / new legislation / etc… there will always be winners and losers. Yes, if businesses could be left to themselves and do what is right for the good of their employees and society rather than only striving for profits then I agree that the figurative pie would be greater to go around. Unfortunately that will never be the case and we’ll have to deal with a smaller pie that can be attained due to the need for government intervention / regulation.

 

I can see both sides of this argument very clearly.

1) The CEO/upper management is more aware of the economic situation for his business than the average worker. So for a CEO to say, "look, we are expecting a big hike in cost due to Obamacare, if it is implemented we expect to have to lay people off to make up the difference." That's perfectly fine with me, he is not telling you to vote for Obama or you lose your job.

2) The workplace should be void of any personal opinions. I work in a conservative office with two gay guys, we don't talk about it, they don't talk about it. Not because we hold something against it, or they are ashamed, but because there is no need to bring up touchy issues that polarize staff. The same thing holds true for politics. How often have you had a conversation about this election and your blood pressure has risen 40%? Why allow that to happen in the workplace?

At the same time, there is no way to see how someone voted, so as long as he isn't making threats, lying about a particular candidate, or breakin the law in any other way, I don't have a huge problem with this...I am worried about the future though, slippery slope here.

 

I feel like you arent looking at the issue in real terms. My dad took on a company that was going to close. american jobs were going to disappear. when he used his life savings to float the payroll while restructuring the company. all of his employees kept there jobs.

at no point in his expansion was there ever enough profits to pay wages an higher than what he did.

what u need to understand about the 300K dollars is he cant spend all that money. if sales declined for anyreason, payroll will still have to be met. on many occasions his "personal wage" from years past or the current timing was used to meet payroll and keep the factory producing goods.This is how he never had to lay one person off and continued to hire in a reccession. Other far wealthier business owners were not willing to take risk of this nature.


Im sure he wishes all of the factory workers got paid 100K and had goldplated healthcare. but the company doesnt make enough money to support that.

You said you find that disgusting. you think it is disgusting that one man "makes" 300k while others have so little. Should he have just shut the factory down. Sent 175 women home and said "its disgusting we cant pay you more, i rather you have no job at all" and then started producing clothes with cheap mexican labor???

Chandler Parsons makes 800K dollars is that disgusting? How many people does he give healthcare benefits to? How many people does he make sure receive paychecks everyweek?

You say tax payers pick up the tab, as if you pay more taxes than he does. He paid 100K in taxes for 2011 many people paid more but many people also paid less than that. And since he didnt lay-off his workers due to such disgusting wages. He was able to sign their payroll checks collectively worth over $3.5 million for the year. When they are taxed at a 15% rate they pay over 500K in taxes between them.

This business may not provide what you and many others including myself consider basic benefits, but it does provide jobs and money. Many of these women wouldnt find other jobs if they were fired and would be unemployed like many other americans. Instead we have a business that contributes over 650K in income tax alone, and women who have a little bit of money rather than none at all.

He could have just not done anything. kept his salespersons job, made 300k a year get his own benefits and not have to worry about any of that. Would that have been less disgusting than trying to build something even if it wasnt providing enough to cover healthcare. Health care that wouldnt have been covered if the business didnt exist anyways????

Im not gonna lie my dad has some luxuries he doesnt need, that other people dont have. Directv, several hd tvs, he has been able to take us on family vacations through the years, he is a lucky man. But he can do that because he knows how to sell coverall, he has experience and industry connections that enable him to do that. If he couldnt sell coveralls, it wouldnt matter who had sewn them. No one is stopping any of my dads employees from going into business, they could sew there own coveralls and sell them, perhaps at a flea market. At that point they would be a business owner. but if they didnt sell any coveralls they wouldnt make 20K, they wouldnt have insurance, they would make $0. If they sold there coveralls for 50 dollars each and somehow managed to get fire r****dent fabric for free than they would only have to sell 1000 coveralls to make $50k, Of course they would need some sort building to do this in, and an industrial sewing machine that could handle that kind of volume....

You told me that my story disgust you. And i think that crossed a line of mutual respect. So you will have to forgive me when I tell you that I dont think you understand the way money works. Big businesses hoard our countrys resources leaving the middle and lower income families to fend for whats left. The only way to combat that is a free market, with proper restraints at the very very top like punishing companies who want to produce in other countries who play unfairly even though they make litterally billions of dollars. If all legal labor was a fair price, then companies couldnt use laborers to feed their own greed. President Obama has no concern with this, he is not attacking the Nike's or Apple's of the world. He said himself in the debate about iphone manufacturing, those are bad jobs we dont want them. Sharing income will not help anything. The truly evil companies have money where the IRS cant get it. Obama isnt going to use their money to help the lower income families. He will use what really is the middle income families money, and then there will just be more lower income families. Im all for 100% of our country living above the poverty level. But it isnt going to happen simply because we want it too.

I find your lack of rationale and over emotional way of solving our country and the worlds biggest problems disgusting, frankly.

 

Yes that is pretty much an accurate way of looking at it. The losers are low profit margin companies in this legislation. The winners are giant visible companies like Nike and Bulwark who will now have less indepent manufacturers like father fighting tooth and nail for what ever little market share they can get without giant advertising budgets and the benefit of extreme low cost labor. I know thats not how it has been sold to us, but Im telling you that will be the real world effect.

Some jobs will be lost. Maybe not many. I only know of 175, im sure theres more but maybe thats a neccesary evil. Where will these people work instead, Nike? maybe they should move to Honduras then.

 

Link.

 

Wrong 97% of small businesses won't be affected.

http://mediamatters.org/research/2012/07/19/still-true-obama-plan-wont-raise-taxes-on-97-of/187246

 

Those 3% employ at least 25% of all are workers in the private sector. Many of the 97% business are like my personal business. I do screenprint and embroidery. It is a one man show. These type of 1 2 or 3 employee business make up a large part of that 97%

Don't count the businesses count the jobs. I can tell you straight up if you run a business that employs 50 people your small business is more important to the national economy then mine is. And if you run a business that employs 300 people it's more important than my dads. Jobs are good

 

If you employ 300 people, I don't believe that's a small business.

 

1. Whatever your definition of a small business is to you personally, Are small businesses good? Yes or no

2. Why.

2. What if 6 small businesses of completely equal cost, pay scructures and profits of 50 people merged together keeping all the dyanmaics of the bismess in tact. would they still be a small business?

3. What would the negative effect on the economy be of such a merger?

4. If 6 small business owners became partners should they be taxed more or held more responsible for such a maneuver?

5 what if they fired 251 people? And replaced their productivity with cheaper overseas labor? would that be a small business?

6 should the government reward a company who would do this?


You say 300 people isn't a small business. My question is do u think there is anything in between Joes Kolache shop and Walmart. Are you really going to buy into the notion that there are only small businesses and big businesses? Do you really believe that just because a company has more employees that they aren't struggling to make money and afford to keep all of their employees?

 

Stephenoa, I just wanted to add to my earlier comments, in case I didn't make it clear, that I have a real respect for how you're standing up for your father, his business, and what you see as a negative impact from Obamacare. I have deep disagreements with you about your takes on Obamacare, this issue affecting your father, and by association, your family, but you've done a fine job of defending how your father does business, and how you see Obamacare affecting that business. I just think you're wrong, and wonder if your father's employees might be better served looking into getting a different job. If they haven't the education to better themselves, government should give them a hand and make it possible. If your father's business is the only real alternative for a job where it's located, then perhaps they should consider moving to a different job market. Working for poverty level wages, without benefits, is not a future those employees should stick with, in my opinion. I'm glad your father has made a personal success of his business due to his hard work, but that success, simply going by what you've told us, does not go hand in glove with success for those working for him.

These are tough choices, choices Americans sometimes have to make with their feet. I've lived in Austin for over 30 years now, and our unemployment is currently 5.3%. I can tell you without fear on contradiction that during those 30+ years, untold thousands of men, women, familes have come here for a job, better wages, and a lower cost of living. It could be that your Dad's workers need to make their own move for a better opportunity. What they are facing now, based on your posts, is not a bright future. Rather, it looks to be the opposite of that. Industries come, go, evolve. It might be that the economics of your father's business, those affecting his employees, simply don't add up today. Having said that, I wish him well. And I'm glad you're posting here. It's nice to read some civil, serious posts in D&D. While I might not agree with some of the content, you're a welcome addition.