Companies Influencing Employee Voting

http://www.ajc.com/news/news/national-govt-politics/koch-election-mailing-to-employees-sparks-controve/nSg9y/

Recently in our area a minor controversy has arisen over the actions of Koch Industries, which is the corporate parent of Georgia-Pacific. They distriputed opinionated articles authored by company leaders to inform their employees of the various candidates in the upcoming November Presidential Election. In which the conservative-leaning higher ups of the company openly backed Republican candidate Mitt Romney. While they did seem to favor one candidate, they did urge their employees to vote for whichever candidate they saw fit to serve as Commander in Chief.

These action have raised questions from employees, non employees, and members of the local media. Was this a diliberate attempt to pressure their fifty thousand employees into voting Red? or was it simply an innocent attempt to urge their employees to take part in our country's democratic process. People stand on both sides of the issue. Some say they are uncomfortable with companies overstepping their bounds and pushing their politcal views onto their workers, while others argue that a company should be able to openly do anything they believe will help support their economic success.

Some may argue that the actions of this company would hardly hold any significance seeing as Georgia is a historically Republican state where Romney is almost sure to win. While these actions may not directly affect the upcoming election, this serves as a baseline of how people view companies openly stating support for various political parties and candidates. Many major corporations may start making a more direct impact on our political system and we as citizens must decide: are we ok with this?