The media are calling this “voting advice” remarkably and disturbingly uniformly. Every single news article I looked at uses that misleading overly-mild phrase.
There’s a state statute that specifically disallows this form of coercion, so it’s not just friendly “advice”, according to the Ohio legislature, despite the attempt to minimize it:
A handful of McDonald’s employees in northeastern Ohio received handbills in their most recent paychecks suggesting they vote for three Republican candidates.
“If the right people are elected we will be able to continue with raises and benefits at or above our present levels,” the insert said. “If others are elected we will not.”
The handbill with a simple McDonald’s logo at the top recommended votes for Republicans John Kasich for governor, Rob Portman for U.S. Senate, and Jim Renacci for Ohio’s 16th congressional district. A Renacci campaign flier was also included.
Allen Schulman, an attorney representing one of the employees, said Friday he had forwarded the paycheck insert to Canton’s city law director, citing state and federal laws against corporate advocacy in elections.
Brunner said her office would investigate the letter and hand off findings to the state attorney general. “Voter intimidation is a form of voter fraud. It is a serious offense requiring a strong response,” she said in a statement.
What’s interesting, in light of Citizens is how McDonalds, the corporate entity, can’t run away fast enough from this franchisee, understandably, because shilling for the GOP alienates at least half of their customers.
Which is why the names of corporate donors should be revealed, so potential customers can make informed choices on where to eat and shop.
I’m off to phone bank for Ted Strickland, so I can’t respond to comments or questions.
Sly
The same way a mafia goon gives “security advice” to a potential extortion victim.
“Nice benefits you got there. Shame if anything were to happen to them if you voted the wrong way….”
cathyx
How would McDonalds ultimately know how the workers voted? Does the boss walk into the booth with the workers? Do the workers have to show the boss a copy of the voting pamphlet?
WyldPirate
But, but, brown people somewhere MIGHT vote and ACORN might be involved.
Brown people in MuriKKKa aren’t citizens you know because being brown is fraudulent.
Southern Beale
I’d say more than half. I’d say it’s their target market. Have you noticed that all of their ads feature African Americans? Remember their rebranding as “Mickey D’s”?
c u n d gulag
“Give me a Big Mac meal, with water, instead of soda.”
“You want propaganda with that?”
“Uhm, no thanks. Just the meal…”
Chyron HR
@cathyx:
How the workers voted? They don’t care. They’re going to fuck over everyone if
Republicansthe Right People don’t win, period:“If the right people are elected we will be able to continue with raises and benefits at or above our present levels. If others are elected we will not.”
BUT WHAT ABOUT THE NEW BLACK ACORN VOTING ADVICE, HUH?!
Blackfrancis
I got into a facebook argument with a cousin over this. He got all upset and claimed I was trying to influence people’s votes, just like the handbill, so what’s the difference. besides, both sides do it.
That was the point where I wished I was raised by wolves instead.
Tom Levenson
Hello, Burger King!
Much better french fries anyway — according to my kid.
jrg
As much as I think the franchise owner is in the wrong, he’s an individual, and as such is subject to his repercussions in the “free market”, whereas if McDonalds had financed a political agenda, their actions would be hidden from the “free market”, so such repercussions would not exist.
…of course, McDonalds corporate probably would not do something so blindingly stupid and out-in-the-open as this franchise owner, so maybe it’s not exactly the same. Individuals were able to hide themselves from the rolls of prop 8 donors, after all. Plus I could see shareholders getting really pissed off about a corporation spending what would have been their profits.
Suck It Up!
@Blackfrancis:
What I really hate about the “both sides do it” argument is that it leads people to do nothing about the problem. Its like “so what? everyone’s doing it.”
Quiddity
@Southern Beale: My thoughts also.
Suck It Up!
@Tom Levenson:
ugh!!! burger king fries are horrible!
Dennis SGMM
Heck, that franchise owner was just exercising his free speech rights. I wouldn’t be surprised to see some well-funded group push this all the way to the SCOTUS which will doubtless uphold the defendant and further confirm that the electoral process in this nation is, indeed, up for grabs.
Napoleon
Hysterical, when I use to practice law in Canton I would ride the elevator with him since his office was above ours. He was well know as a very very good PI attorney, so it kind of surprises me that he is involved in an employment matter,
Jennifer
What’s worse is that the workers are being told to vote for people who oppose both minimum wage and the health care reform. If the workers followed the “advice” and voted for these tools, they’d likely see their wages cut and would continue to have McDonald’s shitty health care “plan”, which is more expensive for virtually no benefits than what they’ll pay for comprehensive coverage under the new health care law.
valdivia
yeah we know this technique in Latin America when the land owners would force their peons to vote for their buddies in elections. lovely to see it making a come back here. Ugh.
Off to work the Stewart Rally for the DNC. If any of you are in town and have time to phone bank afterwards please, please do so!
Uloborus
@Blackfrancis:
‘Extremism in the defense of virtue is no vice. Moderation in the defense somethingsomething is no virtue.’ That really, straight up, probably including the misquote, is how they think lately. They are right and we are wrong. NOTHING they do can be wrong if it supports their side winning, and nothing we do can be right if it supports our side. Encouraging a Democrat to vote is as reprehensible or more reprehensible than threatening a Democrat to not vote.
Jennifer
@Napoleon: Probably not all that surprising. PI attorneys are the only ones who do much advertising, and low-wage employees rarely, if ever, have reason to utilize the services of a lawyer. It’s likely that one of the employees went to him because they had heard of him via advertising. Since most McDonald’s employees probably don’t call their broker or banker or accountant when they need a referral for an attorney.
Dennis SGMM
@Uloborus:
“Them boys standing around the polls dressed in white sheets and carrying axe handles were defending our freedoms.”
PaulW
@cathyx:
The threat is that, if those Republican candidates fail to win election, the McDonalds’ corporation will take it out on the wage slaves. So even if the employees DID vote, there will still be beatings scheduled for next Friday and they will continue until morale (of the CEOs) improves.
I have a question: remember back in 2004 when a Democrat with a Vote Kerry sticker on her car lost her job when her Republican boss told her to remove it? Whatever happened to that guy, did he lose his job, face criminal charges, anything like that?
So far, all the voter intimidation I hear about comes from Republican-favored upper management types telling their underlings to Vote GOP Or Else You’re Fired: are there any serious documentations of Democratic-favored upper management doing this to Republican underlings? (and no, unions telling their members to vote All-Democrat doesn’t count, unless there’s evidence said union leaders threatened some form of retaliation)
PaulW
@Blackfrancis:
The difference is that you attempting to influence votes are doing so with debate, oratory, and public persuasion based on facts: this is protected by the First Amendment. That handbill shoved into paycheck envelopes by a company is an attempt to buy votes, cause coercion, and intimidate voters: this is called Voter Intimidation and it IS against the law.
As for the “both sides do it” argument, I have YET to see a case where a Democratic-leaning boss/supervisor/corporate head fired or threatened to fire their employees for voting Republican. All the cases I’ve ever seen – like that lady in 2004 with a Vote Kerry sticker – have been Republicans intimidating Democrats. Until your cousin brings up evidence, tell him he’s a fucking idiot who’s not paying attention.
Blackfrancis
@PaulW:
I went there when he busted out a Dennis Prager video onto my facebook wall, he seemed shocked when I told him it offended my intelligence and told him he owed me 8 minutes of Media Matters videos.
Jay C
@jrg:
You seem to be missing the point here: pay-packet electioneering of the type Mr. Siegfried engaged in is illegal under Ohio law, and would be so (possibly even more so?) even if this was a corporate policy, rather than just the personal decision of a local franchisee. Also: how would the “free market” “hide” such a decision? ISTM that if McDonald’s (a nationwide entity with thousands of outlets across the country) decided to overtly “advise” its (scores of thousands of) employees to vote (especially by pay-envelope flyers!) one way or another, their size and ubiquity would make their partisan biases more obvious, not less.
@Kay:
I think they have to call it “voting advice” since, lame attempt at influencing the employees as it is, Mr. Siegfried probably put enough thought into his insert to avoid wording it the way he probably wanted to: i.e., “Vote Republican Or Else!”
quaint irene
I keep imagining Squeaky Voiced Teen from the ‘Simpsons’ reading this.
asiangrrlMN
Fuck him with a rusty pitchfork. That is all. Oh, and ‘voting advice’? Really? That’s the best they can do? I mean, I can understand they don’t want to say threatened, but there has to be…how about attempt to unduly influence? Or, attempt to intimidate? Seriously. Voting advice?
@Blackfrancis: The difference, I presume, is that you don’t threaten to fire people if they don’t vote the way you would like them to vote. I hate false equivalence with a passion. Tell your cousin to stuff it. (Not really if it will irrevocably damage family harmony).
RalfW
Sort of OT, but in the vein of politics, I was listening to Several Things Considered in the car y’day afternoon, and Bobo and EJ Dionne were doing their usual shtick. Now, it’s easy easy to make fun of Bobo, but this whopper caught my ear:
So, uhhh, what ideology is involved in voting for the despised Republicans, then, David? Run that by me again?
This is 1) an anger election and 2) a typical mid-term, first Prez term election with maybe a +5 or +10 swing due to item 1.
He is engaging in fluffy-dancing (as my colleagues used to call our sales technique when we were selling new products we knew nothing about). He’s playing the right-wing hackery line pure and simple. He’s full of crap.
Roger Moore
@Napoleon:
Maybe he’s doing it pro bono. Given how badly the Republican party has demonized personal injury lawyers- indeed, any lawyer who wants to help people against corporations- I can imagine he might want to stick it to the Republicans any way he can.
As a side issue, why don’t lawyers get more credit for their pro bono work? Doctors are expected to be able to charge for every little thing they do, but they’re rarely portrayed as a bunch of greedy bastards. Lawyers are expected to help out poor people and groups at no charge as a regular part of their practice, but they’re rarely given credit for being generous for doing so. It seems like a strange double standard.
jwb
An AP article in the paper this morning about how Hispanics in the Rio Grande Valley are voting Gooper because they hate, hate, hate the health care bill. Yes, I know to discount it because of the source, but it does make me think that people who have completely tuned out the news media may well be better informed than those who are getting their news from the local paper and TV.
Blackfrancis
@asiangrrlMN:
These are the cousins who I strongly disliked growing up. As twelve year olds they used to punch their mom in the arm to get her attention. Whiny little rich kids who never knew what it was like to struggle in life.
As such, even though I grew up within a few hundred miles or less, I rarely saw them.
jwb
@RalfW: You know the drill: Every time the election goes for the Goopers it is always a sign that this is a center-right nation and they have a mandate to cut taxes. Every time the election goes for the Dems it is some temporary aberration that should in no way be read as a mandate for anything.
What pisses me off is that this has been the narrative ever since I can remember yet the stupid Dems are blind-sided by it every fucking time.
JPL
For those tied to the internet for their news access, CSPAN and the Washington Post will have live feeds to the rally to restore sanity starting at noon.
TPM also, too.
Some Guy Who Is An Insurance Broker
Coming from someone who has worked closely with several hundred independent McDonald’s owner/operators, here are some things to keep in mind:
1. This franchisee acted on his own. This is not a big bad corporation coming down on the little people. As much as McDonald’s Corporate has fucked up over the years, they would not be caught dead doing something this dumb. They are, these days, pretty shitty for their fights against minimum wage law, more than anything else. Anyway, this frachisee is a stand-alone entity who rents his business from McDonalds Corp – I mean that literally. He pays rent to McDonald’s to use their building and buy their products and re-sell them to conusmers. Trust me, the folks in Oak Brook, IL are SUPER fucking pissed about this. He will likely have his franhise agreement cancelled; if not that, he will be severely punished and have some of his locations taken away until he can prove he’s not going to fuck up like this again.
2. Only about 50% of McDonald’s franchisees carry employment practices liability coverage. I’m not even sure, if he has coverage, that his carrier would cover this episode. He is going to pay far more dearly out of pocket for this action.
3. As much as they tend to be conservatives (I would guess about 70/30 split), the vast vast vast majority of franchisees I have known are pretty decent human beings who care deeply about the people they hire. Yeah, they have problems in their business model, but I bet your company does, too. There are a lot jobs out there that depend on the franchisees, too, that have nothing to do with flippling burgers. Insurance brokers, insurance companies, and trust me, a whole shitload of PI and EPL lawyers who make a good living suing the fuck out of the franchisees who screw up like this. There are food products vendors, sign vendors, people who make brooms and mops and cleaning products, paper products vendors, machine builders, people who fix and maintain those machines, and on and on. Look, I’m not excusing their bad behavior, but a lot of people put food on their families because they provide products or services to the franchisee community. In other words, most of them know they have it pretty damn good, and would never dream of doing something this monstrously stupid. In the end, most of the franchisees are family-owned small corporations or s-corporations, and a huge number of them operate as sole proprietors. They put in long hours in their stores and not all of them get stinking rich – most of them do very well, but not all of them are driving Bentley’s to work.
Perspective – just sayin’ – this is one bad apple. Ther are other bad apples in the bunch, but he is not representative of the whole community.
Basilisc
I wonder how many incidents like this happen that we don’t hear about and aren’t prosecuted. No doubt a depressingly large number.
Bullsmith
It’s like the 20th Century never happened.
Roger Moore
@Bullsmith:
You make that sound like such a bad thing. I’m sure that moving back into the 19th Century (preferably before 1861) is a major goal of the Republican party right now.
GregB
I’ll never forget the general manager of a factory I worked at in NH telling the assembled masses in 1984 to “vote for the Republicans because voting for Democrats would be liking putting razor blades in the hands of babies.”
morzer
@jwb:
Elections never go for the Dems. ACORN and the Black Panthers just steal them. Or so I am now given to understand.
J sub D
Only unions should be able to give voting recommendations to workers because only unions have the workers best interests at heart.
“Free speech for me but none for thee”.
Omnes Omnibus
@J sub D: Do you think employers should be able to do this? Do you think that the employer has the best interests of the workers at heart?
asiangrrlMN
@GregB: Whereas voting Republican would be like slicing the throats of the babes with the razor blades.
@Blackfrancis: Ah. Got it. Then, tell your cousin to STFU. Asshat.
Bender
That’s code for “I’m going to throw hot coffee on Iraq veterans and then flip them the bird,” right?
Suffern ACE
@jwb: It would not surprise me that Hispanics who vote Republican hate the health care bill. Republicans in general hate the health care bill. A lot. I believe that many of them have difficulty sleeping because of it.
morzer
@Bender:
Starting early, DougJ? Are you the Change we seek?
asiangrrlMN
@morzer: I really don’t think DougJ is change. DougJ is better than that.
morzer
@asiangrrlMN:
I know, but I just enjoy puzzling Bender and Change simultaneously. Anyway, we both know that DougJ is not DougJ but an international conspiracy involving George Soros, the Illuminati Trilogy, the Battenberg cake franchise, and the Pittsburgh Penguins.
PaulW
@J sub D:
Unions, to my knowledge, can’t fire people. So when a boss with the power to fire people and dock wages pulls shit like this, it’s a problem. And it’s illegal.
There may be practices of intimidation by union leaders on the lower echelons, but I’d like to see evidence of that if you’ve got any. So far all I’ve seen the last 6 years (since 2004) have been Republican bosses harassing their Democratic employees.
Instead of griping about “oh the other side does it too,” try to recognize the wrongness of YOUR SIDE still doing it anyway. There is NO JUSTIFICATION for breaking this law.
Jason T.
@PaulW: Yeah, but before unions, people didn’t whine so much when this kind of “friendly voting advice” was dispensed.
In fact, according to my grandfather, the Coal & Iron Police used to deliver their “friendly voting advice” directly to your skull, using a club. I’m sure the invisible hand of the market helped cushion the blows.
Mnemosyne
@J sub D:
I didn’t realize that unions could fire workers from their jobs if they didn’t vote the way the union wanted. You’d think the actual employer might have something to say about that, wouldn’t you?
Comrade Kevin
@Napoleon: Forgive the dumb question, but by “PI” do you mean Personal Injury, or Public Interest?
Gus
I’d say I’m boycotting McDonald’s, but I haven’t eaten that shit in a decade anyway.
Jbird
That paycheck-insert threatens the employees with loss of benefits if the Democrat is elected and offers them raises if the Republican is elected.
Clearly illegal.