Plenty of eyebrows were raised last week when David Siegel, the CEO of a large timeshare company, sent a lengthy written tirade to his workers, telling them President Obama's re-election would "threaten your job." Siegel has long been a major Republican backer, including having boasted that he was "personally responsible" for George W. Bush's 2000 victory, thanks to efforts Siegel said "may not necessarily have been legal."
MSNBC's "Up With Chris Hayes" reported on another example over the weekend.
For those who can't watch clips online, Chris highlighted a message Arthur Allen, CEO of ASG Software Solutions, emailed to his employees, pleading with them to "elect a new President and administration." The executive added, "If we fail as a nation to make the right choice on November 6th, and we lose our independence as a company, I don't want to hear any complaints regarding the fallout that will most likely come."
The Huffington Post added that Bob Murray, CEO of coal company Murray Energy, has allegedly pressured his employees to make campaign contributions to Romney; the CEO of auto parts manufacturer Lacks Enterprises has told his employees that an Obama victory may lead to pay cuts; and the Koch brothers have warned their employees of dire "consequences" of a Romney defeat.
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Most of the powerful Republicans I know get all their news from Fox and Friends. They really believe everything they are told. They have the power to act on the fears stirred by Ruppert Murdock and his pretty blond minions. That is scary.
How can anyone take somthing seriously that sounds like a Saturday morning cartoon show. I just never got that
Always nice to see further proof that there is no connection whatsoever between the brain and the billfold.
You guys should see the front page love note to the Koch brothers in The Wichita Eagle today. Blech! What a waste of ink.
When is blackmail not blackmail? Apparently it is not when you are pushing your GOP agenda. Indirect threats are at least conspiracy to promote an illegal act (voter intimidation), which I believe carries federal consequences.
Like the American worker isn't going to take serious hits if they do vote Romney in, we'll still have jobs, alright; long hours, little pay, scant benefits, but worse, worker safety will take a hit, environmental pollution will increase, and there'll be no unions to get our personhood back. Workers won't be people like corporations.
How soon before the statues of Rove and Murdock start popping up in Kansas city squares...
When is false imprisonment and kidnapping not false imprisonment and kidnapping?
http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/10/12/51239.htm
These guys really do think they're above the law and utterly untouchable. I mean, these are federal crimes they're talking about in this lawsuit.
Ah the rich and corporate have allowed their ID's for greed and power take-over what little humanity that they had! People wake up these people are traitors not just to working Americans but to America and our democracy - vote out all of the GOTP, put people into office that are actually willing to work for US and not the rich corporate interests!!
Considering Bob Murray's dismal safety record and the number of coal miners killed in his mines, I've never been able to understand why he wasn't long ago convicted of negligent homicide and imprisoned.
That would be an example of our justice system producing some real justice.
NeedMoreCoffee @ #3.1
They already have one of Pill Popping Rush. Want to flip coins on which one gets theirs first? I think Rove unless they jail Murdock, then he'll be their hero.
It's disgusting that this sort of thing is even legal. But given that it apparently is, shouldn't this count as an in-kind political contribution to the Romney campaign?
Seems to me like a quid pro quo thing that should not be legal. If that happened where I work, I'd quietly look for another job and take the first one that comes along.
As Dave van Ronk once said in artful paraphrase "There was the threat of folk music" ...
Yes as we trip the way merry down merry down
To the masters table able clowns able clowns
To cheer the somber greys of the masters brow
We eat grey chow
Dancing and sing we smile so we won't lose that chow thing
Oh the sixties will pay for the indignity
Of people knowing how many capitalists it takes to screw a society
Hmmm...If Obama gets in again, the Koch Brothers companies might suffer a slowdown?
That's supposed to make me vote AGAINST Obama?
This goes straight to the point that a large part of the Republican base actually believe; Money = Power. The whole point of power is to use it and if they have to use it as a whip to get the serfs and peons in line then so be it.
These people keep telling us exactly what it is that they want for this country. The only problem with that is that they want us to return to the gilded age and they don't honestly understand why some people aren't ok with that.
So to clarify, the bald face lies, the lack of policy disclosure, the obvious catering to base by the Republican nominee, the redistricting, the culling of voters, the poll watchers, the ID laws, the 24/7 bias and propaganda from mass media, politics from pulpits, we can now add threats from corporate management about worker jobs...all this is the Republican idea of "free" elections?
Was 1996 the last free election America will know?
Mr. Potter and George Bailey. No.
Ebenezer Scrooge and Bob Cratchit. No.
Big Brother and Winston Smith. Yes, thats it!
"The proletarians will never revolt, not in a thousand years or a million... If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face- forever."
funny, I was thinking of referencing 1984 on the previous blog post regarding the incessant lies told by the Republican party. Doublethink, anyone?
If I heard this out of my company it would make we want to vote for the other guy as a silent form of protest against the corrupt powers. I hope these employees feel the same way.
Why do you think the early union organizers were able to get people to keep going despite the very real possibility of being beaten and even killed.
On a very basic and fundamental level we as a culture don't like schoolyard bullies and we don't like being threatened. This guy made a huge mistake.
How is bald faced voter intimidation legal? We need some indictments here, followed by a tax rise.
Perhaps the Chief CEO- ie. POTUS, should gently remind all the members of the armed forces, that if Mitt is elected, he has several new wars in store for them -and participation will be mandatory.
Well, sort of. Like it was in the war that Mitt was compelled by a higher duty (college deferment and a few years in France) to miss. Can't have people who have a higher destiny (like, say, Mitt's grandchildren) waste their lives or even critical years doing things (like, say, dying) that those people can do. Frankly, what else are they good for?
While pleasantly remembering tales of the nuclear winter , safe in our bomb shelters , we regaled one another with the tales of this quaint dumpster diving that our visiting friends from Upper East Asia seemed to enjoy , endlessly .
There is a reason that we have a secret ballot, and this is it. No one can be forced to vote for anyone in the USA.
That's true and a nice thought, but there is still a latent influence at work here; if you disagree with the CEO who implores you to vote a certain way, and threatens that your job and/or pay is at risk if you vote the other way, how likely are you to risk doing volunteer work for the opposing campaign? Put up a yard sign or bumper sticker and risk the CEO or a co-worker seeing it? Attend a rally? Write a letter to the editor? Talk to friends, relatives in public or via social media? Better not if you want to keep your job.
Even if he can't control what you do in the booth, this is at minimum a different form of suppression.
You know the part of the thinking of these supposed business geniuses I just don't get? I don't get the part where they insist that having to pay more tax on their profits will drive them out of business. No business ever went broke because the income taxes on its profits were too high. And the reason no business ever went broke because the income taxes on its profits were too high is that if you're not making a profit, you're not paying taxes. Yeah, property and payroll taxes can theoretically break a business, but no business ever went broke because the income tax on its profits was too high.
I would get it if they said "higher taxes on my profits will 'force' me to off-shore." But when they say stuff like "I'll have to fire everybody and shut the business down and I won't be able to expand the business if the top marginal rate goes up on my profits," I have to conclude that either they're just willfully lying or they're idiots who deserve to fail. Because if they really won't make the investment necessary to meet demand just because their net ROI will be a few percentage points lower if we return to Clinton era (or, god forbid, Reagan era) tax rates, I guaran-damn-tee you someone else will and that someone else will put them out of business.
Yeah, I already hear the trolls saying "less money in their pockets means less money to invest, libtard" but that's just rote talking point spew. Galtian Overlords don't expand their businesses with their own money. They expand it with borrowed money. They'd be crazy not to both because servicing that debt actually lowers their tax bill and because it shifts that much of the risk of bankruptcy onto the lender.
Because, yeah, turns out that just as government finances don't work the way a middle class family of four's do, neither do the finances of businesses that net more than a million.
Nice to see that there are others out here who understand how this all works. Great post, Steve!
I've said that all along on other blogs when people were crying about the rich having to pay taxes. I asked them all and never got an answer: "What rich person ever went broke paying their taxes?" I never got an answer, but a lot of them called me sandbox names.
And why does it seem to me that these "job creators" that are threatening their employees, crying about taxes and supporting Willard with millions, all seem to be "job creators" that were like Willard, born into their riches?
I guess "job creators" are saying "I'm not going to expand my business and make an extra $100K a year if you force me to pay $4,000 more on my pure (after salaries, after cost of goods, etc.) profit."
Who would be surprised to find out that some of the management teams at some of the corporations have a fund drive that passes around forms to employees for which they are required to fill out and for which they pledge their contribution to the Romney campaign? This happens in many organizations for various types of charities where the employees are brow-beaten for contributions to the organization's favorite charities in order for the organization to be able to boast of its altruism.
What's more is that employee compensation is 100% deductible so the CEO's are making gross misrepresentations when they say they can hire more with lower tax rates. Tax rates do not affect hiring one iota. You will always hire an employee if he/she will add to your profits, and never hire one if he/she will reduce your profits. It matters not what the tax rate is on your profits.
Presently the nation's hiring situation is exactly like it always is: businesses have hired and will hire precisely as many employees they need to meet the demand for their products or services. The lack of demand is why the wealth hoarders have $22 trillion stashed overseas, and the fact that so much of the money is in the hands of the rich is why demand is so low.
Of course that makes sense, which means the GOP will disagree.
It sounds like management at ASG Software is already planning for layoffs, and are using possible election results as cover.
Yeah, bingo! Sounds just like that!
Has anyone ever been able to explain why so many computer geeks are idiots and morons, despite their digital flair with a keyboard?
I wonder how many of these CEOs realize that they're making the best possible case for a very much expanded social safety net?
There's nothing like irresponsible behavior by the wealthy and powerful to unite the masses in a campaign for social and economic justice.
Needless to say, this is disgraceful. How much more evidence of anti-American fascism do the people need?
It would be interesting to see if there is an increased use of absentee ballots at these companies. If so the ballots can be viewed by management. Where is the media?
Where did you ever get the idea that "management" can look at an employee's absentee ballot after the voter has filled it out? Even if the ballot was sent to the employee "C/O" the business, the business would be breaking the law if it tried to "require" the employee to show the filled-out ballot.
Big Surprise! Honey, before you come back to bed will you bring me a Midol too! I'm getting one of my greedy, nervous headaches again..
Another thought just came to me.
The last time employers pulled this trick (that I know of) was in 1936. One plank of the Democratic platform in that campaign was to introduce legislation to set up Social Security in the Congress that would convene in 1937. Some employers put fake "pink slips" in pay envelopes with notes saying that, if Democrats maintained their control of Congress and the WH and passed SS into law, then, because of the massive costs that SS would entail, why, employees would have to be fired to save on costs!
Noone knows how just much effect that threat really had (if any), but it is known what happened in November 1936: Democrats increased their majorities in the House and Senate and retained the WH.
One can only hope for a repeat...
"We're such inept managers that we have no clue how to prosper in a different regulatory environment. Board of Directors, we'll try to do better, please don't fire us."
I'm not much of a jet setter, but I know that the Westgate Resorts will not be on my list. http://www.irishcentral.com/story/ent/manhattan_diary/ceo-davis-siegal-threatens-to-fire-employees-if-obamas-re-elected-173482611.html
I will be avoiding these places http://westgateresorts.com/explore/
Pretty awful stuff to happen in America. Employers telling employees how to vote.
I read a little of the Tocqueville after hearing about him from Allen West, but it seems to me Tocqueville has something to say about majority rule being the same as one man rule.
People like to think about having dominion, that is my point. Employers having dominion over employees converts to king/royals and any of this "democratic/majority rules" stuff is not really consistent and should be concerning to have some kind of "trickle down" ideology. As if we were to prop up the dominators.
I find it odd that Allen West was enamored with it, because of his "slavery" and "plantation" comments. The trickle down theory seems pretty "royal" or caste. I like to think of having opportunity for all, but it seems that the very idea of trickle down seems like "let them eat cake" or unless you vote for my tax cuts you might not have a job, plus we are cutting the safety net away, good luck.