by James Parks, Apr 24, 2011
The right-wing extremist billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch are not satisfied with spending millions on Capitol Hill to mold, gut or kill more than 100 prospective bills or regulations or funding blatantly anti-worker front groups. Now they want to control how the more than 50,000 people who work in their companies think and vote.
The Nation magazine obtained and published a 14-page Koch Industries election “packet” mailed out before last November’s election to the employees, telling them who they should vote for and warning them of the consequences to their families, their jobs and their country if they voted wrong,
Experts say employers likely will send out more of this political propaganda in 2012.
Although employers can spew out political propaganda like this in the workplace, they can bar unions from even handing out a list of endorsed candidates on the job.
Says UCLA law professor Katherine Stone:
If a union wanted to hand out political materials in the workplace not directly relevant to the workers’ interests—such as providing a list of candidates to support in the elections—the employer has the right to ban that material. They could even prohibit its distribution on lunch breaks or after shifts, because by law it’s the company’s private property.
Read “Big Brothers: Thought Control at Koch” here. And make sure to check out the election packet here.
