“all employees should understand the personal consequences to them of having our tax rates increase dramatically if President Obama is re-elected, forcing taxpayers to fund President Obama’s future deficits and social programs (including Obamacare), which require bigger government.”
Turns out Wisconsin, which has a history of being a pretty progressive state, has a law on the books against that sort of thing.
Statute 12.07 (3)
No employer or agent of an employer may distribute to any employee printed matter containing any threat, notice or information that if a particular ticket of a political party or organization or candidate is elected or any referendum question is adopted or rejected, work in the employer’s place or establishment will cease, in whole or in part, or the place or establishment will be closed, or the salaries or wages of the employees will be reduced, or other threats intended to influence the political opinions or actions of the employees.
(Emphasis mine)
The question now is will the Republican Attorney General, J.B. Van Hollen, do his job and prosecute this CEO for violating the law? I am not holding my breath on it…
3:41 PM PT: From Occams Hatchet in the comments – more of the e-mail that makes the threat very clear:
The other big impact on Rite-Hite employees, if President Obama is re–elected, is the good chance of losing Rite-Hite insurance and being put into Obamacare. Employers have the choice (though competition in the marketplace will dictate), to continue their existing plans or to pay a penalty and have employees go into the Government Plan. Our plan costs much more per family than the penalty and hence the possible competitive need to drop the Rite-Hite Health Plan. Every opportunity to make up for lost profits to taxes will have to be evaluated.
This article was originally published on The Daily Kos on Thursday, October 25, 2012.
About the Author: Mark E. Andersen is a U.S. Army Veteran who served during the cold war, spending two years in Wildflecken, Germany. He returned to school much later in life, received his Bachelor’s in 2006, and is currently working on a MS in Professional and Technical Writing from the University of Wisconsin – Stout.
Mark credits his dad, a Teamster, for putting the fire in his soul for the rights of workers and the downtrodden. Both of Mark’s parents were children of the depression and instilled much of their generation’s values in him. He is the single father of a son. You can find him on Facebook – his page is “Kodiak54 (Mark Andersen).”
