Corporate CEOs email workers, threatening layoffs if their preferred candidate loses this November. | Democracy, elections, and voting

US elections 2012: Can employers tell workers how to vote?: Slate

Corporate CEOs email workers, threatening layoffs if their preferred candidate loses this November. Robert Frank, CNBC A flurry of emails from CEOs telling workers how to vote in November has raised a troubling question: Can a company legally tell workers how to vote? For the most part, the answer…

…Besides discouraging political speech from employees who might disagree with their employers, this type of political advocacy makes many people uncomfortable because workers largely view their employers as the most credible source for information, according to a study cited by the Denver Business Journal. Others, however, insist these types of communications even out the playing field with labor unions that have long been influential at promoting candidates to their members.

Lynn Rhinehart, general counsel for the AFL-CIO, tells Reuters that while employers can encourage support for a certain candidate, they can’t threaten to fire someone based on his or her vote.

Daniel Politi has been contributing to Slate since 2004 and wrote the “Today’s Papers” column from 2006 to 2009. You can follow him on Twitter @dpoliti.