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Workers: Your Boss Can Impose Their Political Will Upon You
By: Brian Bull | Ohio Public Radio • WCPN
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In the final weeks leading up to the 2012 presidential election, Republican challenger Mitt Romney accused the Obama Administration of waging a “war on coal."
Romney appeared in an attack ad, flanked by grimy, helmeted miners from Ohio coal company Murray Energy.
In the ad, one of the miners said the president’s energy agenda threatened the industry.
The ad says: “I got two young grandsons, I’m scared for their future, let alone mine….I support Mitt Romney.”
As it turns out, some of the miners used as the backdrop for the ad said they were pressured to attend the Romney rally. The Obama campaign shot back with an ad of their own
The Obama ad says: “…they had to take the day off without pay. That they took a roll call, and they had a list of who was there and who wasn’t. And felt they wouldn’t have a job if they did not attend.”
A number of groups, including ProgressOhio, filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission against Murray Energy.
They charged that the Ohio based company made an illegal contribution to the Romney campaign by coercing the miners to attend the Romney event without pay.
The company said the allegations are baseless. The FEC won’t comment. The matter is still pending. But is the issue all that complicated?
If it’s true the miners were taken off the job to essentially cheer and pose with Romney – and they weren’t all Romney backers – doesn’t that violate their guaranteed Rights of Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Association?
“That happens all the time," Brant said. "People are very quick to think their constitutional rights are offended.”
Joann Brant is a law professor at Ohio Northern University.
“If we’re dealing with private employees, they don’t have constitutional rights," Brant said. "By and large, people who work for private employers are what we call employees at will. They can resign for any reason, the employer can fire them for any reason. Public employees have much more significant constitutional rights."
So, if you work in the private sector and a boss mandates that “Hillary Clinton in 2016” t-shirts be worn in the office, they can do that regardless of your political preferences.
Likewise, if your boss orders you to appear at a John Kasich campaign rally in the workplace even though you are a Democrat – they can do that.
Camille Hebert, who teaches at Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law, agrees, that is the law. Still, she said, there are cases where private employees who’ve been fired have taken legal action.
"You could have the argument that discharging someone for their political beliefs – or their failure to adopt the employer’s political beliefs would be a violation of public policy," Hebert said. "But generally those claims haven’t been very successful in Ohio.”
There was an Ohio law that prevented employers from forcing workers to display or proclaim political endorsements, but it was repealed more than 40 years ago.
As surprising as this form of employer coercion might be, it’s a predicament employees rarely find themselves in, and there’s a good reason for that.
As Russ Roberts, a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, said it’s bad for morale.
“Most private employers don’t take a political stance on anything, because they don’t want to alienate customers and they don’t want to alienate employees," Roberts said.