The New Republic stirred up a bit of trouble for coal baron Robert Murray by revealing the aggressiveness with which he has pressured his employees to donate to his conservative political pets and projects.
In the magazine’s hard-hitting October 5 exposé of the situation at Murray Energy and its subsidiaries, Alec MacGillis,reported that:
The accounts of two sources who have worked in managerial positions at the firm, and a review of letters and memos to Murray employees, suggest that coercion may also explain Murray staffers’ financial support for Romney. Murray, it turns out, has for years pressured salaried employees to give to the Murray Energy political action committee (PAC) and to Republican candidates chosen by the company. Internal documents show that company officials track who is and is not giving. The sources say that those who do not give are at risk of being demoted or missing out on bonuses, claims Murray denies.
That riled up Ohio Democrats (where Murray Energy has its headquarters) who riled up local news outlets. The Toledo Blade reported this week that:
The Ohio Democratic Party on Monday urged federal and state prosecutors to investigate whether the largest privately owned coal company in the country illegally forced employees and vendors to contribute to presidential contender Mitt Romney and other mostly Republican candidates.
Cleveland’s Plain Dealer and Steubenville’s WTOV-TV kicked out similar pieces, all of which credited The New Republic. It’s nice to see them following the story, but as my colleagues at CJR’s Swing States Project pointed out last week, local reporting has generally not kept up with the campaign message war around coal that’s been playing out from Ohio to Virginia. In this most recent case, too, the local newsrooms let a national outlet do the legwork and while they wrote follow-up stories. Next time, the locals should be out front.
Wow. This stuff is becoming a plutocratic meme:
http://m.yahoo.com/w/legobpengine/news/blogs/ticket/koch-industries-sends-pro-romney-packet-employees-195709471--election.html
"Koch Industries, the Wichita, Kan.-based company run by the billionaire Koch brothers, sent a voter information packet to 45,000 employees of its Georgia Pacific subsidiary earlier this month.
In it was a letter, dated Oct. 1, from Koch Industries president Dave Robertson implicitly warning that "many of our more than 50,000 U.S. employees and contractors may suffer the consequences" of voting for President Obama and other Democrats in the 2012 elections, a list of conservative candidates the company's political action committee endorses and a pair of editorials: one, by David Koch, supporting Mitt Romney, and the other, by Charles Koch, condemning Obama...
Siegel and the Koch brothers are not alone in issuing anti-Obama missives to employees. According to MSNBC, Arthur Allen, chief executive of ASG Software Solutions, wrote a similar email to his staffers on Sept. 30:
Many of you have been with ASG for over 5, 10, 15, and even 20 years. As you know, together, we have been able to keep ASG an independent company while still growing our revenues and customers. But I can tell you, if the US re-elects President Obama, our chances of staying independent are slim to none. I am already heavily involved in considering options that make our independence go away, and with that all of our lives would change forever. I believe that a new President and administration would give US citizens and the world the renewed confidence and optimism we all need to get the global economies started again, and give ASG a chance to stay independent. If we fail as a nation to make the right choice on November 6th, and we lose our independence as a company, I don't want to hear any complaints regarding the fallout that will most likely come."
#1 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Mon 15 Oct 2012 at 02:29 PM
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-essential-secret-ballot.html
"Chris Hayes discussed this In These Times investigation of a Koch Brothers email to 50,000 employees scaremongering the socialist takeover and urging them to vote Republican on his show this week-end...
This is why we have a secret ballot, folks. There's always been pressure from people in power to force those in their employ or otherwise answerable to them to vote according to their instructions. The biggest problem with this is the fact that while they are allowed to proselytize in favor of their own issues and candidates, they also have the freedom to restrict their employees from doing the same. They can fire you for it --- there's no such thing as free speech in the corporation. But no matter how much they try to pressure their employees to vote their own way, they will never be know who followed their orders and who didn't. And that's because some people long ago who truly valued liberty and understood what it meant, also understood that you cannot trust those in authority not to use their power for their own purposes. They knew that Democracy simply cannot exist without the secret ballot. "
#2 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Mon 15 Oct 2012 at 04:38 PM
And Alec MacGillis shows up in the Hayes clip to talk about Murray:
http://video.msnbc.msn.com/up-with-chris-hayes/49406403
#3 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Mon 15 Oct 2012 at 04:43 PM