Legality of employee threats in terms of election

Loki97 said:

Then I can suggest to someone that voting for Obama might improve the chances their house doesn't burn down?

Click to expand...

Absolutely, if the reason you're telling him this is because Obama was promising to cut the budgets of Fire Departments nationwide. That's not a threat; that's a helpful heads-up with an actual policy-based, cause and effect reason behind it.

Hatuey said:

Yes, because he's telling people he'll fire them if Obama is elected. As if taxes were guaranteed to stay low with Romney elected. Again, intimidation and you're being extremely hypocritical in not admitting it.

Click to expand...

Again, that's not what he said, is it? And it's reality. Not intimidation.

If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, as our current President plans, I will have no choice but to reduce the size of this company," he wrote. "Rather than grow this company I will be forced to cut back. This means fewer jobs, less benefits and certainly less opportunity for everyone."

Click to expand...

MaggieD said:

Again, that's not what he said, is it? And it's reality. Not intimidation.

Click to expand...

Again, he's implying that under Romney, no new taxes will be "levied". Which is utterly false and unrealistic. Again, hyperpartisan of you MaggieD.

Hatuey said:

Again, he's implying that under Romney, no new taxes will be "levied". Which is utterly false and unrealistic. Again, hyperpartisan of you MaggieD.

Click to expand...

He's implying no such thing, Hat. You can keep posting from now 'til doomsday on this issue, and you'll still be wrong. He said what he said. The President says he's going to raise taxes. Of course, an idiot knows that the President doesn't have the power to raise taxes. Now does he?

Edit: You may have the last post on this issue. Even though you're wrong. Go argue with someone else.

MaggieD said:

He's implying no such thing, Hat. You can keep posting from now 'til doomsday on this issue, and you'll still be wrong. He said what he said. The President says he's going to raise taxes. Of course, an idiot knows that the President doesn't have the power to raise taxes. Now does he?

Click to expand...

So he's lying about something which Obama CAN'T do and telling his employees NOT to vote for Obama based on what you ADMIT is a lie because they'll be fired and you don't call that voter intimidation? Are you kidding me? Yes, you're being hyperpartisan for sure now MaggieD.

It may or not be legal but it's Dishonest in the extreme.
this greedy political CLOWN's Business went Blooey.. in 2008.. under BUSH.
Timeshares being Real Estate's weakest sister and no doubt still not recovered, and probably won't ever.
His house Was (past tense) For Sale.

Not criminal but made subject to civil damages.

How is this different from the Obama admin asking Defense contractors to not comply with the WARN Act. That is current law and tax implications.

I was looking for a job when I found this one.

It would seem free speech would cover a business manager or owner doing so. A question of ethics would be whether the statement was actually true. If it was true, then it would seem management/owner SHOULD tell employees the real effect of the election outcome - unless elections are only supposed to be about platitutes over a fantasy world. What would seem unethical would be deliberately hiding what the known effects of an election outcome might be from employees.

For example, in a city counsel election one candidate wants to put in place regulations that would ban strip clubs within 1000 yards of a church or school. The other does not. Whoever wins will make the deciding vote on that hot button issue.

Most employees don't really follow local politics that closely. Are any of you saying it would be wrong for the owner of a strip club 500 feet from a church to tell the employees if candidate A wins we'll have to close down the club and all of you lost your jobs? How would that be unethical? I'd think it would be unethical NOT to tell the employees.

joko104 said:

It would seem free speech would cover a business manager or owner doing so. A question of ethics would be whether the statement was actually true. If it was true, then it would seem management/owner SHOULD tell employees the real effect of the election outcome - unless elections are only supposed to be about platitutes over a fantasy world. What would seem unethical would be deliberately hiding what the known effects of an election outcome might be from employees.

Click to expand...

I disagree. Because there are many partisan nutjobs out there (most likely including this employer) who truly believes that if the candidate they don't like wins, it will bring about an economic apocalypse of biblical proportions and cause them to close their business...when in actuality, it MIGHT - might - increase their expenses by a couple percent. So it's quite likely that employers who spout off with **** like this seriously believe that they ARE just being truthful with their employees. In reality, they are threatening their jobs.

It's one thing to tell employees what's going on when there is some certainty. For example, if Obama DOES win reelection, and taxes ARE raised on this dude's business, and he DOES crunch the numbers to determine that he'll have to lay off X employees...then it makes sense to tell the employees as soon as possible. But threatening their jobs like this is an implicit threat to vote for whomever the employer wants them to vote for. To put it another way: What does notifying the employees of this BEFORE the election - when there is uncertainty about whether Obama will even be reelected, let alone whether he'll get to enact some specific economic agenda, let alone how that agenda will affect a particular business - accomplish? The only thing that employees could do differently is change how they vote...which is the very definition of voter intimidation as far as I'm concerned.

For example, in a city counsel election one candidate wants to put in place regulations that would ban strip clubs within 1000 yards of a church or school. The other does not. Whoever wins will make the deciding vote on that hot button issue.

Most employees don't really follow local politics that closely. Are any of you saying it would be wrong for the owner of a strip club 500 feet from a church to tell the employees if candidate A wins we'll have to close down the club and all of you lost your jobs? How would that be unethical? I'd think it would be unethical NOT to tell the employees.

Click to expand...

Is it assured that the election of the candidate would cause the strip club to be shut down? If so, then that's slightly more acceptable IMO. But even still, the employer shouldn't do anything more than make voters aware of that candidate's position on strip club laws, and let them read between the lines for themselves. I think it's still crossing the line to tell his employees pre-election that they're fired if the employer's preferred candidate loses...especially since they don't have control over anything more than their own vote.

For the sake of conversation, what if he's being factual? What if really will let so many employees go if Obama is elected? Is that intimidation, or is that fair warning?

Then again, what if all his employees vote for Romney, and Obama still wins?

radcen said:

For the sake of conversation, what if he's being factual? What if really will let so many employees go if Obama is elected? Is that intimidation, or is that fair warning?

Click to expand...

Still intimidation IMO. In fact, that makes it even worse because it's an infantile form of collective punishment. Now if Obama is reelected and Obama actually passes some actual POLICY that harms his business, then I think he can and should let his employees know as soon as possible just so that they're in the loop.

But I think that it's a HUGE leap from "Candidate X gets elected" to "It won't be profitable for me to continue employing you." There are MANY things that could potentially be bad for business, but there is no point in worrying your employees when they are only possibilities. I would regard this as the equivalent to a farmer telling his workers "If it doesn't rain tomorrow, it means the crops won't grow very well by next month, and therefore it won't be profitable for me to continue employing you." There are several steps in that logical chain that are nothing more than conjectures, and in any case there isn't much the employees can do about it anyway.

In 99% of the cases, asshats that threaten their employees' jobs if some politician gets elected aren't doing it for any factual basis. At best, they're just running their mouths based on a ridiculously warped view of what is likely to transpire if that candidate wins...and at worst, they're intentionally trying to intimidate potential voters.

Kandahar said:

Still intimidation IMO. In fact, that makes it even worse because it's an infantile form of collective punishment. Now if Obama is reelected and Obama actually passes some actual POLICY that harms his business, then I think he can and should let his employees know as soon as possible just so that they're in the loop.

But I think that it's a HUGE leap from "Candidate X gets elected" to "It won't be profitable for me to continue employing you." There are MANY things that could potentially be bad for business, but there is no point in worrying your employees when they are only possibilities. I would regard this as the equivalent to a farmer telling his workers "If it doesn't rain tomorrow, it means the crops won't grow very well by next month, and therefore it won't be profitable for me to continue employing you." There are several steps in that logical chain that are nothing more than conjectures, and in any case there isn't much the employees can do about it anyway.

In 99% of the cases, asshats that threaten their employees' jobs if some politician gets elected aren't doing it for any factual basis. At best, they're just running their mouths based on a ridiculously warped view of what is likely to transpire if that candidate wins...and at worst, they're intentionally trying to intimidate potential voters.

Click to expand...

Well written post.

My first thought when I heard of this was, "Doesn't say much for you as a businessman, does it?"

Kandahar said:

Still intimidation IMO. In fact, that makes it even worse because it's an infantile form of collective punishment. Now if Obama is reelected and Obama actually passes some actual POLICY that harms his business, then I think he can and should let his employees know as soon as possible just so that they're in the loop.

But I think that it's a HUGE leap from "Candidate X gets elected" to "It won't be profitable for me to continue employing you." There are MANY things that could potentially be bad for business, but there is no point in worrying your employees when they are only possibilities. I would regard this as the equivalent to a farmer telling his workers "If it doesn't rain tomorrow, it means the crops won't grow very well by next month, and therefore it won't be profitable for me to continue employing you." There are several steps in that logical chain that are nothing more than conjectures, and in any case there isn't much the employees can do about it anyway.

In 99% of the cases, asshats that threaten their employees' jobs if some politician gets elected aren't doing it for any factual basis. At best, they're just running their mouths based on a ridiculously warped view of what is likely to transpire if that candidate wins...and at worst, they're intentionally trying to intimidate potential voters.

Click to expand...

As an employee working for that farmer, I would want to know if my job was threatened by something that is out of my control, or even more relevantly, partially in my control. What was passed along was information. Decisions have costs and benefits. In any decision, I would want to know full costs and full benefits before making such a decision.

SO yes, if the farmer tells me that my job is at risk if it doesn't rain tomorrow, I would appreciate the information so I could start planning. If the farmer tells me that Obama wins the presidency, I'll lose my job, yes, I want to know about it. If he's blowing smoke and doesn't fire his employees after the fact, then it would appear it was a lie with a malice intent: to persuade votes. However, if he truly doesn't find the time of running the business worth it anymore, and shuts down his company, then he was only passing along information.

Only if one of these eventualities plays out will we be able to accurately judge whether or not the employer is in the wrong here. But if the intent was true and he is going to close down his company, giving that information to his employees is a respectable thing to do as they have the ability to try to prevent it from happening.

radcen said:

For the sake of conversation, what if he's being factual? What if really will let so many employees go if Obama is elected? Is that intimidation, or is that fair warning?

Then again, what if all his employees vote for Romney, and Obama still wins?

Click to expand...

It's not about who they vote for. It's about who wins. The fact (we are assuming it's fact, as per your post) that was passed along was: If Obama wins, the company will need to shut down. So to your question, the only relevant portion was "Obama...wins".

fredmertzz said:

As an employee working for that farmer, I would want to know if my job was threatened by something that is out of my control, or even more relevantly, partially in my control. What was passed along was information. Decisions have costs and benefits. In any decision, I would want to know full costs and full benefits before making such a decision.

SO yes, if the farmer tells me that my job is at risk if it doesn't rain tomorrow, I would appreciate the information so I could start planning. If the farmer tells me that Obama wins the presidency, I'll lose my job, yes, I want to know about it. If he's blowing smoke and doesn't fire his employees after the fact, then it would appear it was a lie with a malice intent: to persuade votes. However, if he truly doesn't find the time of running the business worth it anymore, and shuts down his company, then he was only passing along information.

Only if one of these eventualities plays out will we be able to accurately judge whether or not the employer is in the wrong here. But if the intent was true and he is going to close down his company, giving that information to his employees is a respectable thing to do as they have the ability to try to prevent it from happening.

Click to expand...

Except the logical leaps between "Obama wins reelection" and "I can't profitably employ you" rely on multiple steps of pure conjecture...steps that are easy for a rabid partisan to make, but are not particularly rational from a business perspective. I'm not buying the "he's just passing along information" thing, because the cause (Obama winning reelection) is so far removed from the effect (firing his employees) that it's pure nonsense. He's assuming that he can predict with 100% certainty how a second Obama term would play out, right down to how it would impact his own business.

I don't know what (if any) policies Obama has proposed that he's so pissed off about, but let's say that there is a Policy X in Obama's campaign platform that this guy thinks will hurt his business. What are the other possibilities here, if Obama gets reelected? 1) Obama wasn't that serious about Policy X anyway, and never bothers to implement it; 2) Obama wants to pass Policy X, but Congress rejects it; 3) Obama and Congress both want to pass Policy X, but it gets gummed up for procedural reasons; 4) Obama and Congress both want to pass Policy X, but just never get around to it; 5) Obama and Congress actually pass Policy X, and it doesn't have as big of an impact on this guy's business as he thought it would; 6) Obama and Congress actually pass Policy X and it does hurt this guy's business, but some other factor offsets the loss.

There are other possibilities too, but the bottom line is that he most likely has no idea what the next four years will bring for his business, and the identity of the president is pretty far down the list of factors that could hurt a person's business. If we take the charitable view of his actions, he's just a blowhard who is blowing off steam. The less charitable view is that he's intentionally trying to manipulate his employees to voting for the person he wants them to.

Kandahar said:

Except the logical leaps between "Obama wins reelection" and "I can't profitably employ you" rely on multiple steps of pure conjecture...steps that are easy for a rabid partisan to make, but are not particularly rational from a business perspective. I'm not buying the "he's just passing along information" thing, because the cause (Obama winning reelection) is so far removed from the effect (firing his employees) that it's pure nonsense. He's assuming that he can predict with 100% certainty how a second Obama term would play out, right down to how it would impact his own business.

I don't know what (if any) policies Obama has proposed that he's so pissed off about, but let's say that there is a Policy X in Obama's campaign platform that this guy thinks will hurt his business. What are the other possibilities here, if Obama gets reelected? 1) Obama wasn't that serious about Policy X anyway, and never bothers to implement it; 2) Obama wants to pass Policy X, but Congress rejects it; 3) Obama and Congress both want to pass Policy X, but it gets gummed up for procedural reasons; 4) Obama and Congress both want to pass Policy X, but just never get around to it; 5) Obama and Congress actually pass Policy X, and it doesn't have as big of an impact on this guy's business as he thought it would; 6) Obama and Congress actually pass Policy X and it does hurt this guy's business, but some other factor offsets the loss.

There are other possibilities too, but the bottom line is that he most likely has no idea what the next four years will bring for his business, and the identity of the president is pretty far down the list of factors that could hurt a person's business. If we take the charitable view of his actions, he's just a blowhard who is blowing off steam. The less charitable view is that he's intentionally trying to manipulate his employees to voting for the person he wants them to.

Click to expand...

Well there is no denying this, I admit. It is quite a leap to assume that any candidate will be able to go through with, and actually go through with, what they say they will do. Obama says he will raise taxes on this size of a business. The business owner could clarify that if Obama is re-elected and is able to pass the increased taxes that he says he will, then ... etc. etc.

But the question is one of legality. The business owner makes the assumption that the politician will do what he says, which I don't think the court will find as too much of a leap, and let's his employers know of the consequences of these events. That's information being passed on a not-so-stable, but reasonably figured, argument, IMO, and I would not expect it to be illegal.