A Different Kind of Corporate Activism

Starbucks baristas usually have one job: to serve customers lattes and snacks in an efficient and friendly manner. But in 2015, in the wake of several high-profile episodes of racialized police violence, they were asked to do something else: write “race together” on coffee cups to encourage Starbucks customers to think and talk about racial inequality in the United States. Baristas were directed to do so by CEO Howard Schultz — and thus became part of a growing number of American workers asked to engage with their companies on social and political issues of the day.

Employee political recruitment and engagement — the rank-and-file complement to CEO activism — has become an increasingly important strategy that companies use to influence public policy and elections. In a survey of corporate managers I conducted, “mobilization of employees” was ranked as an equally effective tool as hiring a lobbyist — and substantially more effective than making PAC contributions or buying political ads. And in a survey of American employees I conducted, one-quarter of them reported that their top managers or supervisors had talked politics with them at some point.

On the ground, “employee engagement” takes many forms: Bosses may communicate to employees which political candidates they believe would be best for the business. They may ask workers to write to Congress to express support for (or opposition to) certain legislation. They may even encourage people to attend rallies, fundraisers, or town halls held by politicians endorsed by management. Most companies frame their recruitment efforts as requests — such as when UPS hosted employee town halls with Republican legislators promoting tax cut legislation late last year.

In some cases, employees may feel that their participation is mandatory. For example, more than 15 workers at a coal mine owned by Murray Energy reported that they were pressed to attend a rally for Mitt Romney during the 2012 election without pay. In a radio interview, chief operating officer Robert Moore said, “Attendance…was mandatory, but no one was forced to attend.” Mine workers said that they still showed up out of fear of retaliation from their bosses.

The increased importance of employer-initiated politics reflects the crowdedness of the political arena, according to my interviews with nearly four dozen top government affairs officers and surveys of hundreds of corporate executives. It used to be enough for a company to join a trade association to ensure that its voice was heard in state and national politics. But today’s companies — especially those in heavily regulated industries and on the front lines of political reform — need their own political action committees, a seasoned government affairs staff, and well-developed “employee engagement” programs in order to have a seat at the table in Washington and the state capitals.

As one business association leader explained in a pitch for CEO activism and employee engagement at a Job Creators Network meeting in Miami, “If you have a thousand employees, each one of them touches 20, 30, 50 people in their family, in their community. And if they’re educated about their own livelihood, they’ll make the right decision…to keep the free enterprise system strong.” A government affairs officer at a telecom company I spoke to said that having her employees write to Congress “creates a heightened sense of importance of an issue” and signaled to members of Congress that “we have 3,500 workers in your district, and this is an important issue for them.” The strategy was clear: Mobilize enough workers to write letters that key politicians are compelled to proactively reach out to the company about the issue.

Now More Than Ever

Why has employee political recruitment become so prevalent? First, it’s simply far easier to do than in the past. Most companies regularly communicate with their employees over email or internal websites, offering a ready platform for alerting workers to political issues of importance to the business. In addition, many trade groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, and the Business-Industry Political Action Committee (BIPAC), offer software that can customize political messages or appeals to subsets of workers depending on their positions or geographic locations. More than two-thirds of businesses that mobilize their workers reported using such packages, according to a national survey I fielded of top corporate managers. These tools mean that companies can target workers who live in pivotal legislative districts or states to receive information about important elections or pending legislation. Managers can also track who has responded to political requests and who has not — and use that information in subsequent campaigns.

Second, as unions have nearly disappeared from the private-sector workforce (just 6% of private employees were union members in 2017), managers have a freer hand to engage politically with workers. A generation ago, companies might have encountered competing political messages from unions, but with unions virtually absent from the conversation today, that is less likely to be the case.

Third, companies face few federal restrictions on asking employees to participate in political activities. Over the past decades, federal limits over companies’ ability to influence the political behavior of their employees have become increasingly ambiguous. For example, the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission gave employers much more scope for employee recruitment by allowing companies not only to use corporate funds for electoral purposes but also to use their employees’ time and effort — a corporate resource — to influence elections.

Although workplace endorsements and campaigning are in most cases legal, companies should be mindful that the relationship between managers and workers is unequal and thus attempts to mobilize workers to vote for particular candidates or support certain legislation may feel coercive. (That’s one reason why such recruitment is illegal for federal employees.) Indeed, in my research, a majority of workers disapproved of overt workplace endorsements of candidates or campaigning.

How to Do It Right

Clearly, employers must tread carefully on this new terrain. In my research, about half of all workers contacted by their bosses were untroubled by their employers’ political efforts, but an important subset — perhaps 20% of those contacted — felt that they were pressured into action with which they disagreed. Messages on issues that may divide worker and corporate interests (such as the minimum wage or unions), requests for political action during elections, and partisan messaging can be particularly unwelcome. Corporate positions may also antagonize consumers, causing them to steer clear of the firm, as was the case when Target made a large donation to a political group supporting a Republican candidate for Minnesota governor in 2010. Customers who disagreed with the candidate’s position on same-sex marriage threatened to boycott. Target’s CEO later apologized in a letter to employees, stating “The intent of our political contribution was…to support economic growth and job creation….I realize our decision affected many of you in a way I did not anticipate, and for that I am genuinely sorry.” Politicians themselves might find political activism efforts too toxic and distance themselves from a company — undermining the very reason for employee mobilization.

In such an uncertain landscape, corporations may well benefit from new federal rules that clearly define how and when managers can recruit employees into political activity. Such legislation — spelling out the rights of both managers and workers — would help employers and employees alike. But until such laws are enacted, managers should take a few steps to make sure efforts at employee mobilization do not backfire.

Make it voluntary. Companies should be crystal clear that any requests for workers to contact elected officials or participate in other political activities are not mandatory and that employees’ decisions to engage — or not — will not affect their performance evaluations or professional development. One good step would be for employers to place visible disclaimers on all political communications advising workers that their participation is voluntary. A pharmaceutical manufacturer I interviewed did exactly that — and reported better employee engagement once communications were clearer.

Find common ground. Another smart approach is to limit employee engagement efforts to activities that are of clear interest to both management and workers. Starbucks and Marriott, for instance, have committed to helping their employees register and turn out to vote through the TurboVote platform. They also signed a voluntary pledge to keep those efforts completely nonpartisan and separate from their government affairs activities.

. . .

Politics has permeated nearly all aspects of American life, and so it should come as no surprise that companies are ramping up their political activities. But there are risks and rewards for CEOs who get their employees involved in politics. Aspiring corporate activists need to strike the right balance between informing employees about the stakes of politics and pressuring them into lobbying for their firms.