Joel Blackwell on career and citizenship and companies

Joel Blackwell says one way to buy favor with the top floor is to contribute to PACs that support your company's interests. Click here for a look at recent years' PAC contributions to U.S. national-office candidates.

When employers
play politics

January 9, 2001
Web posted at: 10:03 a.m. EST (1503 GMT)

In this story:

Angling for impact

PAC men and women

Buying friends

RELATED STORIES, SITES

By Larry Keller
CNN.com/career Senior Writer

(CNN) -- "One of the most powerful career enhancements a person can use is to engage in political activity on behalf of their employer."

Political strategist Joel Blackwell cautions that he's not recommending the back-biting, gossip-mongering kind of office agitation. "This can be something as simple as writing a letter to the person you can vote for, or making a contribution to a political action committee (PAC)."

Blackwell, who characterizes himself as a "grass roots consultant," is based in Reston, Virginia, at his own company, Issue Management, which has published his book "Personal Political Power" in 1998.

"As people rise through the ranks of management," Blackwell says, "these political skills become more and more important. If you're a CEO, it's one of the things you have to build into your corporate plan: 'What are our political interests and how do we protect them?'"

Angling for impact

Individual companies and entire industries often have a keen interest in pending legislation and try to influence it.

QUICK VOTE

Do you think it's appropriate for a company to ask its employees to support the corporation's political activities?
No. I think it's ethically unsound for a management to ask its staffers to engage in political efforts.
I can see both sides. Theoretically, employees benefit if the company does. On the other hand, workers shouldn't be lobbied by their employers to use citizenship for one purpose or another.
Yes, I think it's fine for employers to ask employees to engage in and support corporate political undertakings.
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GAVE AT THE OFFICE?

PAC contributions are tracked by the U.S. Federal Election Commission. Here's a look at 18 months in recent donations.

In recent years, for example, loggers in the Pacific Northwest have argued that protecting old-growth forests and spotted owl habitats threatened their jobs. Commercial fishermen on the East Coast have warned that restrictions on catching swordfish would hurt them financially. Banks and credit unions have squared off over proposed regulations.

An industry's response may be to lobby legislators in an attempt to color their perspectives on the issues. Some try to mobilize their work forces to help -- a subject on which Blackwell is sometimes retained as a consultant.

"People who engage in political activities on behalf of their company will be invited to special dinners with the CEO, with top management," he says.

"Those who help to raise political action committee funds will be in constant communication with top management and will be recognized and rewarded. There are a lot of people in America who believe in their companies, the professions they work in -- and who want to advocate for their professions. It can also help your career path."

Maybe, but might a company punish an employee perceived to be less than a team player because he or she doesn't wish to participate in the firm's lobbying campaign?

"There's a potential for abuse," says Paul Tobias, a Cincinnati employment attorney and chairman of the National Employee Rights Institute. "I'm sure there's been grumbling."


Ross Runkel

But, Tobias says, he's not aware of any court cases involving retribution against workers who didn't participate in an employer's political activities.

"The companies I work with bend over backward to avoid anything like that, both when they're soliciting PAC money and when they're asking for volunteers," Blackwell says. "Companies are almost too timid about engaging employees to work on behalf of the company.

"It's important to avoid any appearance or fact of intimidation. I've never encountered anything like that. In fact, I have to encourage most of my companies to go a little bit further to encourage people to participate."

"I think this guy is kidding himself," says Ross Runkel, founder of LawMemo.com in Salem, Oregon, and editor of its e-newsletter, Employment Law Memo.

Like Tobias, Runkel says he's unaware of employer coercion in these matters. "I have my real-world suspicions, but I have no hard evidence," he says. "I think the potential there is rather obvious."

PAC men and women

Tobias concedes that it's not unusual for companies whose workers have union contracts to enlist the unions' political support on industry matters of concern to them both.

A HAIRY CASE

Sometimes the "little folks" do score some points in career advocacy. Joel Blackwell cites one instance of cosmetological nature.

TRACKING PACs

The United States' Federal Election Commission follows the activity of political action committees. The United States' Federal Election Commission follows the activity of political action committees.

Blackwell says that when a company asks its workers to contribute to an industry PAC, privacy is ensured because one employee is usually designated to handle contributions, or the company has somebody from outside do this.

But the names of people who give $200 or more to a PAC are public record. "A company could check Federal Election Commission records and see who in the company has contributed," Blackwell acknowledges.

In theory, at least, a company could compile a list of its employees who didn't give to a recommended PAC and hold it against them when considering them for raises and promotions.

"Retaliations are hard to prove," Tobias says. "That's why, I think, we don't see this in the law offices."

It's also unlikely, Blackwell says. Even a company with a well-run campaign to solicit PAC money will typically have about two-thirds of its workers decline to contribute, he says.

Buying friends

A letter-writing campaign among workers has less potential for abuse, Blackwell says. Usually a company urges employees in an in-house newsletter to write to their legislators regarding an issue of importance to the company.

"That's it. That's the end of it. They don't know who writes," Blackwell says.

"Politics is not everyone's cup of tea," Blackwell adds. "The sensitivity comes because politics looks to a lot of people like something outside of their job. It looks like something they don't want to deal with."


Joel Blackwell

One way companies can ensure greater employee participation, Blackwell says, is to make political activity a part of some workers' job descriptions. An employee might, for example, be required to meet a specific number of times with county commissioners over the course of a year. The employee's success or failure to do so would be incorporated in the annual review of the employee.

"Politicians are going to help their friends," Blackwell says.

"If you've been a friend to a politician, they're more likely to help you. That gets back to the political contributions. They get you access and they do buy friendship. That's because politics is the only profession I know of in which people have to go out and beg for money from all their friends in order to keep doing their job."

Joel Blackwell on career and citizenship and companies

When employersplay politics

Angling for impact

PAC men and women

Buying friends

When employers
play politics