Re Dh's firm dictating to staff on EU vote

[shockandawe]

Just that, dh's boss's boss is hell bent on making it clear that staff at dh's firm should vote to stay.

A man that dh employed (and who is on probation as only been there a month) is an active Brexit member.

There was a meeting last week, not overly work related or compulsory and dh's colleague gave his opinion, in opposition to the boss's stance.

Anyway, dh got pulled into a meeting with his direct boss who had been emailed a shitty email along the lines of "who does this guy think he is" and dh has now been dragged into it.

The plot thickened yesterday as marketing got wind of someone giving a talk for vote leave from Dh's firm. As the company name was mentioned (grabbed from LinkedIn.)
It turns out to be dh's colleague who was made to promise not to attend or give any talk.

Aibu to think this is over the top and wrong?

Steam, if my place knew I was a Brexiter, I think I'd get the sack - honestly.

I suppose there is no way to know that others aren't keeping schtum but there's honestly such horror every time they talk about it and I have looked around to see the response of others and I don't think anyone is Brexit apart from me. Well not the whole place - but my section, which is about 20 people.

Most UK companies are in favour of staying in - they have sufficient nous to realise leaving is economic suicide.

The plot thickened yesterday as marketing got wind of someone giving a talk for vote leave from Dh's firm. As the company name was mentioned (grabbed from LinkedIn.)
It turns out to be dh's colleague who was made to promise not to attend or give any talk.

If the employee is giving talks under the company's name, they have every right to discipline him. He should have made it very clear that he was speaking as a private individual and not as a representative of his organisation.

I think the company also has every right to set out the corporate position to its employees. If there is a chance that jobs will be lost or profits (and therefore salaries) will be affected by the EU vote, then it's arguable that they have a duty to set out their analysis.

Of course, they have no right at all to tell employees what they should or shouldn't vote, but considering that voting is anonymous in any case, it's clear that they can't do this.

This shouldn't be in the workplace and I'd be complaining to the right authority about the boss tbh. he obviously doesn't realise his role in the company.

I very much doubt that anyone is saying people will be sacked if they vote leave, as employers would obviously have no means of knowing how individuals choose to vote. However, I guess they might warn about potential redundancies in the event of a leave vote. You could view this as a threat, or simply as a means of informing people about the likely outcomes. It's only unethical to do this if the intention is to coerce people into voting in a particular way and you don't actually believe what you're telling them.

You could view this as a threat, or simply as a means of informing people about the likely outcomes.

Yes. I find there something particularly infantile about people who think that pointing out consequences is somehow unacceptable. "If Scotland votes to leave the UK, UK government employment in Scotland will cease". "If the UK votes to leave the EU, there is a strong chance that multi-national companies will relocate to, for example, Frankfurt". "If you eat all the easter eggs today, you'll be sick".

This shouldn't be in the workplace and I'd be complaining to the right authority about the boss tbh. he obviously doesn't realise his role in the company.

Do enlighten me as to who this authority is....

OP I hope you will come back and clarify whether he did the talk for himself or under the company banner - which would be mad, obvs.

"grabbed from linkedin"

^This is where the OP indicates that he didn't pretend to be representing the company, but someone else used the company's name instead.

Who on earth needs to look up linkedin to find out who their own employer is?

My neighbour works for a government department in Scotland and she was told if there was a Yes vote, the undersecretary of their department would be there the next day to make them all redundant. I don't consider her or her colleagues to have been given a fair or democratic choice thanks to their employers, and that is totally wrong.

Do you think this because they were bullshitting coffee? Fair enough if they were making it up, but if that was an accurate account of what was likely to happen, how is it unfair or undemocratic? Employers have every right to make their positions public about the impact of any referendum on their business or department. I only wish more of them would do it more publicly instead of just to employees, so people could have a more informed choice! It is information I could use when deciding how to vote, and the same would've been true for the Scottish referendum.

With that said, telling people how to vote isn't on. Give them the information, tell them that if X option wins, the impact on our department will be Y, and it would be better for us if option Z were chosen. But people are quite entitled to prioritise other things over their job stability if they prefer and it isn't for the boss to suggest otherwise.

thinking about the Scots civil servant, if there had been a yes vote, they would have had more work than ever to do for the couple of years after the referendum. What the poster's neighbour said just doesn't make sense.

thinking about the Scots civil servant, if there had been a yes vote, they would have had more work than ever to do for the couple of years

It depends on which department it is. Imagine Wales declared independence. How long do you think most of the jobs at the DVLA in Swansea would last? The Wales-only DVLA would be a lot smaller. There are, I'm sure, similar cases in Scotland of UK-wide back-office facilities operating in Scotland for historical, political or random reasons, and all of those would be repatriated to rUK.

Sorry for my late reply. I had to go out and then do dinner, so just caught up with all the replies.

To clarify, there are 2 incidents. The first being a meeting that the CIO (the big boss) took regarding the eu referendum. Dh's colleague raised a few points that he didn't take kindly to. Afterwards he emailed Dh's direct boss, ranting about the colleague daring to question him, who does he think he is blah blah blah.

The second being that Dh's colleague was supposed to be giving a talk in support of Brexit. There were various speakers from different occupations. Whoever arranged the talk released an overview of the arranged speakers and included details of their occupations. They mentioned colleague's name and mentioned "X who works at X". They gained this info using LinkedIn. Marketing picked up on this and told him he couldn't attend.

Dh clarified that as a company they are supposed to be neutral.

They mentioned colleague's name and mentioned "X who works at X". They gained this info using LinkedIn. Marketing picked up on this and told him he couldn't attend.

As is their right.

Dh clarified that as a company they are supposed to be neutral.

There's a crucial difference between their position externally, and their position to their staff.

so all that is proved is that the CIO of this company is an arsehole.

and in other news....bears shit in the woods.

Incident 1 sounds like a personal difference of opinion and perhaps to a degree a newbie should be careful about sharing political opinions (same for religion etc). I have no idea how adversarial the colleague was or how much personalities come in to play - it sounds like a lot.

With regard to the second, the company was totally justified in their reaction. No-one at my firm is allowed to speak at ANY event using their employment creds without approval from marketing.

In particular on the question of the referendum my firm is not registered as a campaigner and so MUST remain neutral. Accordingly, the guidance from the electoral commission is that they must take care not to inadvertently breach guidelines by releasing materials or holding events which could be seen as supporting one side of the debate. So marketing's reaction seems entirely appropriate.

Nobody can dictate how someone else votes, but your employer can insist that you don't take a political stance on or take a contradictory stance to the company's official policy outside of the workplace that could be linked to them.

Sooo if you're planning on campaigning for Brexit while working for a pro-EU business, you're utterly stupid to have your employment info freely available on LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.

Instead of telling him that he cannot attend, they should have said that the company name must be removed from all advertising literature and he should make clear in his speech that the views he expresses are his own, not his company's.

I don't think Scotland has got any of those DVLA type jobs on behalf of the UK. Or if it does, I cannot think of any. Maybe there could be some Energy Dept ones (Oil and Gas) but I think even those are south of the border, apart from the ones who work for the Scottish Govt .

But if they did have the DVLA, they could hardly close it all down within 24 hours making all the staff redundant. It would take ages to move something like that. Even the new recruitment and training would take several months at least.

I do think the employee could have been a bit more careful not to heckle / publicly question his CEO. No doubt, he feels strongly about the subject but its not a very wise thing to do if you are trying to impress the company. The CEO's response though wasn't very professional either.

I can see why the company would object to their name being used without their permission. They had a right to demand its withdrawal but they didn't have a right to go further and tell the man he may not attend.

I met a woman who works for government. She said her management is instructing the entire workforce on how they should vote and is putting a lot of pressure on everyone to vote in....

It is really surprising how keen they all are that we vote to remain... why?

Any employer can say what they think is the likely effect on a department / company, jobs. Some effects are quite predictable or a clear risk

e.g. Some contracts for buying commercial property have a "Brexit clause" so that the purchaser can pull out without penalty if the vote is Brexit.
Reasonable to warn employees when company profits or employee bonuses would be affected if those buyers withdrew.

"thinking about the Scots civil servant, if there had been a yes vote, they would have had more work than ever to do for the couple of years"
Some UK departments might close within a few months. However, even where it is a couple of years, that could be life-changing / financial disaster for a career civil servant aged 40+, particularly with a specialised skill set.

"works for government"
Do you mean the House of Commons, or a government department.
Noone can instruct anyone how to vote, unless they all have postal ballots and the management are supervising where they out the cross.

Individuals are perfectly entitled to prioritise what they consider to be national self-determination or independence.
A company bases its decisions on commercial considerations and would wish to reduce risk.
Top management would have a far better idea than employees who are far down the chain about how Brexit would affect future orders and contracts that management are negotiating, or whether head office in another country is likely to prioritise operations elsewhere.

Employers have no right to try to tell or persuade you how to vote.we are entitled to our own views and can vote how we choose. In some jobs such as teaching staff should not give there political views, but they are still entitled outside their job to express their views. It would be wrong to use the name of your employer if advertising your vote to imply they supported you, however if you were showing this as a fact eg "I work for ... " then that is acceptable