Company president's note in employees' paychecks: if Biden wins, "permanent layoffs" may be coming

boing
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You’re referring to economic analysis of law theories that came out of the Chicago school of economics in the middle of the 20th century and was championed most vocally by folks like Richard Posner out of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.*

Folks hear the name and assume it simply means that the rich have an advantage, but it’s quite a bit more complicated than that. I think it’s ultimately a shitty, de-humanizing theory that places a premium on allocative efficiency at the expense of justice, but it’s an interesting theory nonetheless. (Here’s one of Posner’s books, which is fascinating (he is a really good writer, if infuriatingly wrongheaded and unpleasant in some ways))

It’s a theory of law that definitely isn’t gone, but hasn’t been ascendant for some time.

*fun fact–I think Posner would have been on the Supreme Court, but there was no way he could stop himself from giving honest answers to questions, and he honestly believed that it made the most sense under the economic theory to allow people to sell their babies

There’s no federal statute on this, but I looked up Florida’s:

104.0615 Voter intimidation or suppression prohibited; criminal penalties.—

(1) This section may be cited as the “Voter Protection Act.”

(2) A person may not directly or indirectly use or threaten to use force, violence, or intimidation or any tactic of coercion or intimidation to induce or compel an individual to:

(a) Vote or refrain from voting;

(b) Vote or refrain from voting for any particular individual or ballot measure;

(c) Refrain from registering to vote; or

(d) Refrain from acting as a legally authorized election official or poll watcher.

(3) A person may not knowingly use false information to:

(a) Challenge an individual’s right to vote;

(b) Induce or attempt to induce an individual to refrain from voting or registering to vote; or

(c) Induce or attempt to induce an individual to refrain from acting as a legally authorized election official or poll watcher.

(4) A person may not knowingly destroy, mutilate, or deface a voter registration form or election ballot or obstruct or delay the delivery of a voter registration form or election ballot.

(5) A person who violates subsection (2), subsection (3), or subsection (4) commits a felony of the third degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082, s. 775.083, or s. 775.084.

Seems to be the answer is…probably not, under Florida law? It’s undeniably shitty and arguably should be prohibited, but it’s most definitely not a given under the statute and would require some precedent in the state that said clearly that doing this was illegal. I don’t think that’s out there, yet.

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The corporation with a single owner that I am aware of has received 350,000 in PPP funds. The business is set to have the most profitable year ever. The business owner is definitely in the 1%. Forgiving his PPP loan is nothing more than welfare for the rich.

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I think you and I largely saying the same things from different angles.

I guarantee that neither you or almost anybody else would like the results of plugging every case into an unfeeling algorithm to determine guilt and punishment. In its extreme, that’s what you’re advocating.

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I would have sent a letter back saying “If Biden doesnt win you could be permanently laid off.”

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Again. Personal wealth and business are two different things. You can’t force someone to buy equity in their company. Anyway, should the dishwasher at a restaurant have to worry that his boss has a boat and a mcmansion and whether that would affect his place of employment’s possible loans and future personal employment? If the owner goes into debt should the corporation be on the hook for it?

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Is putting a note in someone’s paycheck saying “vote this way or you’ll be out of a job” coercive? Yes, yes it is.

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To be clear, that’s most definitely not what I’m not advocating, in extreme form or not. What I’m cautioning against is the idea that we’d necessarily be better off in a system which is based on something other than the letter of the law, something like it’s “spirit.”

I 100% believe that the spirit of the law should inform judge’s decisions in lots of cases, especially in instances of mercy for criminal offenses. I think it’s entirely appropriate to make it a consideration, but to give it primacy, to base a system on it, is another matter entirely that is extremely dangerous.

There’s a principle in law called “legislative intent” that comes as close to being the “spirit” of the law as one could get, and it is fraught. For every case where you can look up a clear record of that the legislature intended a law to accomplish, there are ten where the record is murky at best, and often contradictory. For example, if a bill is passed by 51 Senators, and three of them make a statement about what they intended the law to accomplish that is different than three others, how does the Court determine what the real “spirit” of the law requires?

Again, this is not something that’s an abstract intellectual exercise for me–I’ve seen what it looks like when the plain language of the law is ignored in favor of what the court reasons the “spirit” of the law requires, and much more often than not it does NOT result in better outcomes for the poor and less powerful. There are absolutely examples of the contrary, I recognize, but I am pointing out the danger, not the absolute rule.

If you are aware of any Florida cases that say that “if Candidate X wins, you may lose your job” fits under that statutory definition, I’d be happy (literally) to know of it. I think it probably should be considered “coercive” in that employer/employee relationship, but I just don’t think that under Florida law it is considered coercive.

ETA:

I meant to include that I think you’re right about this, and we agree more than disagree about it, so I hope I’m not giving the other impression by emphasizing the area of disagreement. Or violent agreement. Or something.

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I think a large part of our disagreement is in the purpose of judges. I think their very purpose is to bring human judgement to application of the law, which would be cruel if interpreted by the exact letter, whether by a human or an algorithm.

I would agree that we have pretty shitty system of choosing judges. Both appointments by politicians and voting by the populace are severely flawed, and end up with a decidedly punitive bias. Maybe that’s where you’re coming from? Because I think taking the judgement away from judges is going the wrong direction.

Come on. You know that’s disingenuous. It would be better to look at the case law that forms the distinction between coercion and non-coercion. Does threat of property damage/monetary loss fall inside or outside that definition. If it’s inside, then it’s coercion. Because regardless of how it was worded, the clear meaning of the words this employer used were to threaten his employees’ livelihoods to get them to vote a certain way.

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That is not something on which we disagree.

I agree that taking judgment away from judges is a bad idea. But there is a difference between wanting (indeed, requiring) the exercise of good judgment to fill in gaps, to choose among different options, all the stuff that judges properly have enormous power over on the one hand, and ignoring the plain meaning of laws when it suits them based on their notion of the “spirit” of the law. (it’s worth noting that I’m not talking about judge’s ignoring or refusing to enforce unjust laws–in those very rare instances the judge is ignoring both the spirit and the letter of the law, and it’s a different issue)

I took a quick look at some Florida caselaw, and I didn’t see anything that laid out that distinction in such a way that made such a statement “coercion” under Florida law. I mean it, I’d be happy to be shown caselaw to the contrary, because I think this is behavior that should be prohibited. If there is a Florida AAG who reads that story and decides to prosecute the case, I’d root for the state.

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Emergency funds to keep the dishwasher employed is one thing. Forgiveness of this loan in order to preserve extreme wealth particularly when the business is private is another thing. Public funds are more appropriately used to keep the dishwasher from becoming homeless than to preserve or in this case add to the business owner’s classic car collection.

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“According to campaign finance reports obtained by WESH, the company and its president George Daniels has contributed more than $600,000 in this election cycle to President Donald Trump and groups supporting other Republican candidates for office.”

Maybe save his money to keep his workers employed.

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I have used Daniels products in my job working on telescopes. They make expensive crimping tools for building wiring harnesses for aircraft and other high-reliability electronic gear.

Basically, this guy is saying that Biden is going to make the aerospace market go south.

May I point out that Trump has made the commercial airline industry go south, by ignoring the coronavirus until it was too late.

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let’s face it, there’s a LOT of overlap

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I think the GOP holds the copyright on quite a few methods to achieve exactly that

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Oh, and I was remiss earlier. I meant to thank you for looking that law up. I was curious about it, and lo, you produced it. So thank you.

Strangely, I think if you found the right kind of Libertarian judge, you might actually be able to make the case that taking away someone’s job($$) was violence, and therefore the threat constitutes coercion. However, said judge would examine the workers’ bootstraps, find them insufficiently pulled up, then rule in favor of the owner. :smiley:

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If anything, a letter like this would make me even more likely to vote against my employer’s wishes.

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“ 4. Employer Coercion

Employer coercion has been a concern since at least the late nineteenth century, when some employers would watch over their employees as they filled out their ballots.313 Employer coercion again became an issue in the 2012 presidential election when, during a conference call with small-business owners, presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney asked his audience to “make it very clear to your employees what you believe is in the best interest of your enterprise and therefore their job and their future in the upcoming elections.”314 In the weeks before the election, several executives warned their employees that President Obama’s re-election would cause job losses. On October 8, 2012, for example, David Siegel, the founder and CEO of Westgate Resorts, wrote his 8000 employees:

The economy doesn’t currently pose a threat to your job. What does threaten your job, however, is another 4 years of the same Presidential administration. Of course, as your employer, I can’t tell you whom to vote for, and I certainly wouldn’t interfere with your right to vote for whomever you choose. . . . You see, I can no longer support a system that penalizes the productive and gives to the unproductive. My motivation to work and to provide jobs will be destroyed, and with it, so will your opportunities.315

Similar communications were distributed by the executives of ASG Software Solutions and Koch Industries.316 These emails raised concerns that employers were illegally pressuring employees to vote for certain candidates.317

A recent Ohio case shows how employer coercion can rise to the level of legally actionable voter intimidation. Before the 2012 general election, a supervisor at Q-Mark, an Ohio company, allegedly “threatened Q-Mark employees with termination if President Obama was re-elected,” “informed Q-Mark employees that Obama supporters would be the first employees terminated if President Obama was re-elected,” and “engaged Q-Mark employees in conversation aimed at discovering the employees’ political affiliations.”318 A Q-Mark employee alleged that, the day after the election, she “stated at work that she had voted a straight democratic (sic) ticket” and was fired two days later for that reason.319 The employee, Patricia Kunkle, sued Q-Mark in federal court for “wrongful discharge in violation of public policy” under Ohio law.320 The stated public policy was prohibiting employers from threatening or intimidating employees to vote for particular candidates, based on the federal voter intimidation criminal statute and an Ohio criminal statute banning employer interference with voting.321 In June 2013, the court denied Q-Mark’s motion for partial judgment on the pleadings.322 The parties later settled.”

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You apparently don’t know what that means. All a “private” business means is that they don’t offer public stock. Amazon is public. Koch Industries is private. Most small businesses are private because they are not big enough to get picked up by an exchange. Public companies are all giant. Some giant companies remain private so that they don’t have an external board of directors and shareholder votes. Private vs. Public tells you nothing about the wealth of the investors. In fact, nothing about any corporation tells you about the wealth of the investors except what they take in profits.

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That was my question I was wondering what on earth made this guy say what he said other than “yet another stupid utterance from 45”?

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Or

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