Can Your Vote Be Held Against You at Work?

There is an important upcoming question that will have a direct effect on your job. Your answer will be important to your company staying afloat. Your answer will determine if you continuing to receive a paycheck.  What is the question?  It is a simple question. The question will allow your boss to determine which of his employees are willing to go one step further to keep the business doors open and which employee are working towards shutting down the company.  The answer will determine whom will not continue to work for the boss. The question is, “WHOM ARE YOU VOTING FOR?”

The political landscape and outlook of our country has changed. In these dismal economical times of company insolvency, downsizing, layoffs, and company closures, bosses are demanding increasingly more from their work force. Longer hours, taking home work, cuts in pay, no paid vacations, loosing health benefits, no holiday pay, and the ending of their matching your 401K, are all being used by companies to keep their bottom lines in check and their business open.  Just how far can a boss go, when it comes to their work force, to ensure the company remains vital and open for business?  WHOM ARE YOU VOTING FOR? 

It would be nice to hear your boss, at the next company sales meeting say, ”This economy does not pose a threat to your job. None of your jobs are not in danger of being cut due to downsizing.”  But, what if your company is in danger of closing down like the millions that have fallen into the cracks of too much government red tape.  What if the company you work for will downsize or close all together if a certain political party stays in power or comes to power, can your vote be deemed as a company threat and there fore a reason for YOUR dismissal? 

Employers are not allowed, by law, to discriminate against an employee based their political affiliation, sex, handicap or sexual orientation.  Let’s make this issue a more internal action, like if a boss caught an employee giving away marketing plans, or promotional campaigns, or the companies profit and loss figures to their competitors, the boss would consider these actions damaging to the companies bottom line and in turn, fire that employee.  If an employee is engaging in behavior that will do harm to the company’s profits and survival, are those actions worthy of firing? In effect, can an employee’s actions that contribute to causing harm to the company and its employees, namely your job, be reason enough to be fired?   

Do you believe that the owners or managers of the company have a right to protect your job from other employees engaging in actions that will cause damage to the company and in turn, your livelihood?  Would you not want them to fire that employee before they did damage the company?   If the boss turns a blind eye to the employees causing damage to the company, should you pay the price of losing your job?  You now have no job and worse no paycheck to provide for your family.  You do want your boss to be mindful of protecting the company and in turn your job?  Well, do you?  Or do you believe that an employee should not be held responsible for his actions that may harm the company?  Should a company have the right to fire the employee whose actions were endangering the livelihood of the company?  That just makes sense doesn't it? No one would give that a second thought.  So, let’s take a second look at that question.  WHO ARE YOU VOTING FOR?  

I have spoken with business leaders and business owners who are now considering paying more attention to whom their employees align themselves with in the voting booth. If your political beliefs are in line with the current administration and your boss can see how his continued leadership, or lack thereof, would cause his company to shut down due to the massive cost this administration is placing on his company, like the new health care program due to go into effect in 2014 or the Cap & Trade cost, why should he keep you on his staff?  The very action of your vote is in alignment with the demise of his company? Your actions are seen as destructive to the business and all who are employed in his eyes. WHO ARE YOU VOTING FOR AGAIN?   

I am a small business owner.  I never employed over three people at any given time and I have worked as an independent contractor for over nine years in the real estate industry.  To say that the industry has changed is to say the Pope is Catholic.  Real estate is a new animal. The local bank is now your competition is you are selling your home. Your banker now is in the business of trying to sell houses that owners are walking away from, foreclosing on and short selling.  With the collapse of the housing market, many business have also felt the shift of the financial  market.  Are you happy with the loss of value in your home. If you could go back and vote for the party that wanted to stop this destruction would you? Many businesses are just weeks away from shutting their doors. With your very job in jeopardy does your boss have the right to tell you whom to vote for?  If your boss believes the practices and actions of the current administration has caused his business to be pushed to the point of failure and he finds out that you are voting in the upcoming election against the success of his business, does he have the right to fire you for your company damaging actions?

People are paying attention to whom are working for their business and whom is working against their business’s success.  Now, tell me, are you plastering political stickers all over your bumper this year?