This is one of more compelling stories of the year, IMO. It discusses the power that companies now have over their workers in this increasingly union-less era we live in: the power to effectively bully many of them into voting for their favored political candidates with threats of layoffs and downsizing as the alternative. The money trail makes it abundantly clear who is the favorite of corporate America is in this presidential election: Mitt Romney of the Republican Party. You should hear some of these lines in the linked video. Here are a couple of my personal favorites:
Explaining his blatant threats to his employees in an interview with Bloomberg Business Week, he followed up by putting it this way:"If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, as our current president plans, I will have no choice but to reduce the size of the company."
--David Siegel: Westgate Resorts CEO to his employees
Aside from the sheer weirdness of his analogy (and the fact that the vast majority of American Jews will be voting for President Obama if opinion polling is to be believed) and how demeaning it is to know that your employer thinks of you like a child rather than as a mature, intelligent adult, think about the latter half of that statement for a minute. He says that his company is doing better than ever! So why then would he "have no choice but to reduce the size of [his] company" if Obama should win re-election and the approximate status quo continue? What you see there is that this zillionaire capitalist is NOT making an economic argument. He is indeed issuing a threat. (Trust me, a 4% difference in the tax rate is NOT going to break Mr. Siegel.) Both within the framework of this election and beyond, we need to think deeply about whether this kind of thing -- threatening subordinates to get your way at the polls -- is compatible with the whole idea of society being democratic. We need to think deeply about what kind of society we want to live in.I've always looked out for their best interests. We're like a family. They're like my children, and I'm the Jewish mother telling them to eat their spinach and vote for Romney." .... "I wanted to let my employees know what will come if they make the wrong choice. They need to worry if Obama gets reelected. The company is doing the best we've done in our history. We're making lots of money, but we're not growing.