All Workers Contribute to Corporate Political Donations. But They Don’t Have a Say Where It Goes.
Republicans have made much of the complaint that unions use workers’ mandatory dues to fund political campaigns. You could get a person worked up about that. Why pay for political efforts you don’t personally endorse?
But little has been made of how workers enable corporate tycoons to spend money on campaigns. Especially in the new “corporations are people” era.
Every worker contributes to the company’s bottom line. Does every worker support the company’s politics?
It’s fair to say nearly every worker materially contributes to the profit of a company and the wealth of its owners. CEOs and owners would be the first to say yes, they owe their ongoing success -- or most of it -- to their employees. Unless a company is losing a lot of money, every employee contributes more to their employer than they take home in wages and benefits.
Does every worker agree with owners’ political views?
In fact, workers at many companies are, by dint of making their bosses rich, unwittingly contributing to political movements that lower their own wages and reduce their own rights. And unlike with unions, workers don’t get to vote for their companies’ executives or ownership.
If the corporation is legally considered a person, whose is the will of the “person?” The governance of a corporation isn’t normally democratic, and doesn’t seem a good fit as a citizen within a democratic system of government.
There are countless real examples where employers have used corporate earnings to directly deprive their employees of rights or resources:
Workers at Hobby Lobby helped pay for the lawsuit that denied them birth control coverage in their health insurance.
Are all Carl’s Jr and Dominos Pizza employees anti-abortion? Their work has helped corporate owners back dozens of anti-abortion groups, including those who encourage violence against doctors -- possibly some of the same doctors who are treating employees.
People who help make and ship Brawny Paper Towels, Dixie Cups and other products are paying for the Koch brothers’ political forays, which include fighting minimum wage and environmental laws that benefit their communities.
Even at the upper echelons of corporate society, a worker may disagree with the boss’s politics. Billionaire Trump backer Robert Mercer is a major donor who led Trump to hire Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway. The Wall Street Journal quotes a top executive at Mercer’s firm who’s happy to work for him but doesn’t like his politics: “Now he’s using the money I helped him make to implement his worldview.”
After the Citizens United case extended citizens’ rights to corporations, more of the fruit of laborers’ work has been put to use fighting laborers’ rights.
Not only are workers unable to vote for the way their company spends profits on politics, they aren’t even able to learn about it.
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