Tell Your Employees How To Vote, Shoot Yourself In The Foot
On the other hand, it won't take too many stories like this one to undo all the good from a year's worth of well-meaning environmental and social efforts:
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is mobilizing its store managers and department supervisors around the country to warn that if Democrats win power in November, they'll likely change federal law to make it easier for workers to unionize companies--including Wal-Mart.Not only is this terrible public relations for Wal-Mart, it's a very clumsy way of trying to influence the political climate regarding labor. In the words of Daniel Gross, the Slate magazine commentator on business and economics, "Wal-Mart may be a master of many domains: global supply chains and logistics, local politics and zoning, anti-union warfare and branding. But on the stage of national politics, it has proved to be strikingly inept."
In recent weeks, thousands of Wal-Mart store managers and department heads have been summoned to mandatory meetings at which the retailer stresses the downside for workers if stores were to be unionized. . . .
Wal-Mart may be walking a fine legal line by holding meetings with its store department heads that link politics with a strong antiunion message. Federal election rules permit companies to advocate for specific political candidates to its executives, stockholders and salaried managers, but not to hourly employees. While store managers are on salary, department supervisors are hourly workers.
For one thing, why shift your political spending from overwhelmingly Republican to half-Democratic--as Wal-Mart has done in recent years--and then get caught awkwardly trying to torpedo Democratic electoral chances? If your goal is to make friends on both sides of the aisle (a wise strategy, especially during a period of political volatility), this is no way to go about it.
Gross goes on to point out that, in any case, Wal-Mart's assumption that having a Democrat in the White House would be bad for business is quite possibly wrong:
Despite Clinton's Arkansas roots, most Wal-Mart executives probably opposed Clinton in both his successful campaigns. But during his presidency, Wal-Mart's stock more than tripled. By contrast, Wal-Mart executives polled in 2000 would have been exultant at the prospect of two George W. Bush terms, especially if they were to be coupled with mostly Republican control of the House and Senate. And yet this decade has been a lost one for Wal-Mart shareholders: In the Bush years, the stock hasn't budged at all.As Talleyrand once said, Wal-Mart's ham-handed political manuevering is worse than a crime--it's a blunder.
Yes, politics matters. But in the end, the macroeconomic climate matters a lot more. Wal-Mart's success ultimately depends on whether the lower-income and middle-income customers on whom it depends are doing well or getting eaten up by stagnant incomes and rising costs for health care and gas.
Lesson for business leaders: If you're going to get involved in politics, better rely on a team of people with shrewd political instincts and know-how. Otherwise you may end up doing yourself more harm than good.
Labels: politics, Role of Government, unionization, Wal-Mart
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By 
JBlog, on
August 15, 2008 8:49 AM
The difference, I think, is that your employer has your career, your livelihood, and your future in his hands. The union doesn't. So there's an element of coercion involved when your employer pushes a political agenda that doesn't exist when your union does the same thing.
By KW, on
August 15, 2008 9:33 AM
"The difference, I think, is that your employer has your career, your livelihood, and your future in his hands. The union doesn't."
I think the presumption is that the union does. It's claim is because of its collective power and political influence help determine your future. And decisions made by the union and its members are binding on all members. Don't like a particular decision or rule? Tough darts, farmer -- toe the union line.
My point is, we've got to get away from this notion that there should be one set of rules for people we like and agree with and another for people we don't.
I remember one time while visiting my aunt and uncle in the DC area, we drove past the NRA HQ building. My aunt starting talking about that the organization has outsized power and influence over government decisions.
I replied, so does the AARP.
She said, that's different.
I said the difference is you agree with one and disagree with the other.
By JBlog, on
August 15, 2008 11:50 AM
Well, it's true that, in a general way, unions have influence over the future of employees. But unions don't hire, fire, or promote individual workers. Whereas plenty of people have gotten fired or had their careers stalled for taking political positions that offended their bosses.
By KW, on
August 16, 2008 10:19 AM
I tend to agree that it's a least bad form, if not a bad idea, for companies to tell employees how to vote.
But it's interesting that no one complains when labor organizations do the same thing -- typically in a much more aggressive and even hamhanded fashion. In fact unions are among the largest and most influential political brokers (read: special interests) in the country.
So why is it wrong for a party on one side of the business equation but not for the other side?