With the election approaching, some corporate CEOS are pulling out all the stops to pressure their employees about what they do in the voting booth.
On The Ed Show Wednesday, Ed counted off the examples:
• Robert Murray of Murray Enterprises in Ohio earlier this summer forced miners to attend a Mitt Romney rally without pay, some miners have charged. The Federal Election Commission is probing the episode. Murray later went on Fox News and made the bizarre claim that President Obama wants to pass legislation that would pay for people's electric bills—provoking laughter even from his host.
• David Siegel (pictured), a Florida real-estate mogul who's building the biggest mansion in America, told employees in a company email they should vote for Romney,, adding that he'd lose motivation to work if Obama was re-elected.
• The Koch brothers sent thousands of employees a list of their favored candidates.
• And as Ed reported Monday, Richard Lacks of Lacks Enterprises, a Michigan auto-parts company, told employees in a recent email that they should “vote to improve your standard of living”by opposing Obama.
Robert Reich, an msnbc contributor and former Labor Secretary, pointed out that taxes were lower on these CEOs in the for much of the 20th century. And he added:
These people seem to have no patriotic sense. I mean they are part of a society. They have some obligations to society. And yet they are saying, I don't want to be taxed, and if I'm taxed then I'm going to take it out on all of you, who have less job security than they've ever had, whose wages continue to drop, and whose homes are now worth 30% less than they were before.