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?

Bigchock,
She didn't say which department she worked for. From our conversation I think she is in the clerical/admin level. She did, howevere, say she has a private vote and will vote according to her conciounce .. which will be against management pressure ..

Scotland isn't a foreign country it's part of the U.K. The same as Wales NI and England, there are lots of UK government dept situated here, in my small town alone we have an Hmrc place that employs 1500, a government pensions place that employs maybe 1000, in sure there's many more in The bigger Scottish cities.

noodlesg you've completely missed the point Scotland would have been a foreign country if they'd voted out

Scotland would have been a foreign country 18 months or 2 years AFTER the independence vote. Not the next day.

A firm may have a view given in public, but it is a secret ballot and no-one can be instructed.

But that HMRC place serves people who live in Scotland. There are other HMRC places that serve people who lives in other parts fo the UK. Its not like the DVLA where the whole of the UK is served from one location.

If Scots had got independence the Scottish govt would have wanted its own tax offices and probably the existing HMRC buildings and staff in Scotland would have been offered new contracts for the Scottish govt instead.

Seems Fred Rift is getter ng up to his old tricks again...

Pacs,
when I speak to the Revenue, I get put through to someone in Scotland to deal with my affairs in England. That really annoys me but I can't do much about it as we English didn't have a vote.

It is right that employees be informed if their company / department considers redundancies are a significant risk, not necessarily a cast-iron certainty.

Job cuts in even 2 years can be a disaster for middle-aged employees who might have great difficulty getting another job with similar pay & commute.
Many employers won't even consider hiring people 40+ unless they are senior managers.

An employee who feels very strongly about Scottish independence or Brexit might gladly take that risk; others would be horrified.

And absolutely campaign vigorously on whatever side you wish. Just make sure noone knows who you work for

Employers have no right to try to tell or persuade you how to vote.

Of course they do. They can say what they want, and employees can pay as much or as little attention as they want.

If Scots had got independence the Scottish govt would have wanted its own tax offices and probably the existing HMRC buildings and staff in Scotland would have been offered new contracts for the Scottish govt instead.

"Probably" being the operative world. Same terms and conditions? Continuity of service? Same pension arrangements?

Incident 1 - difficult to say without actually being there. Could be clash of opinions/personalities. The Brexiter might have been being quite disruptive putting his points across, or the CIO can't handle being challenged, or a combination of these maybe.
The second incident, the company are entitled to say they don't want their name associated with the speech/event. It may not have been the Brexiter who linked his company to his talk but he still has the responsibility to make it clear when signing up that he is talking on his on behalf, not as a representative of the company. It does seem strange that the company would say he cannot attend, rather than just make it clear that his views are his own, although if the promotional material has been pushing his employment it may be the only way to stop the association at his stage.
Either way, no a company cannot dictate how an employee votes, but they don't seem to be doing that anyway.

My work has a policy on just about everything, and for politics we are supposed to clearly distance ourselves from the company - that's his problem (fair enough it was done without his consent, but in his position when engaged to speak I'd have made clear this was in a personal capacity - I think he should have checked this).

My company was one of those who said they might move their head office from Scotland in the event of a yes vote. It was pretty clear what the views of the leadership were, but there was no assumption that everyone would vote the same way. A lot of the people I worked with were pretty clear they were voting No, but I don't assume everyone I work with did (in fact I know some people who said they didn't).

The government employee thing is interesting - I know some people who are civil servants who were expecting a much bigger department if there was a yes vote, and others who were expecting their job to go. If it was someone carrying out a UK wide role in a dept based in Scotland I imagine they would have been offered redeployment not redundancy.

My company doesn't tell people how to vote. However, in 2010 the head of the FCA wrote to his staff just before the election outlining Tory plans and how awful they would be for them. He did very publicly back pedal once the coalition was in place.

There was no suggestion the staff in the Scottish department had been told the place would close the next day though pax. People can be made redundant with a longer notice period. I'm not saying that's what happened but it would be useful to hear more from that poster about why she thinks it was undemocratic.

The charity commission sent out a memo saying that it was not allowed for any staff or board member to advocate or campaign either way linked to the name of the charity.

I do think how in / out could affect your job is a legitimate consideration, and many people would appreciate an explanation as to potential implications for the company they work for . But that is not the same as telling people how they 'must' vote, which is in any case not possible with a secret ballot.

But to express a political view when presenting yourself in a professional network like LinkedIn as an employee of xxxx is not good . I don't know whether an employer can do anything about it unless they have a clear policy (and many will have an important reason to do so ) but it makes you look unprofessional and potentially a bit of a nob. Or inexperienced / naive.

Bologrpah - No, not same T&C, probably not pension continuity - there would have been the currency issue for a start. It would have been very complicated to solve. However, the Scottish govt would have definitely needed to tax its people so you can be sure that they'd have had tax offices. The laws governing their employees though would have been there own.

I am self-employed and work for a number of clients. Every one of them has expressed their unsought opinion to me as to their position on the referendum. I have refused to engage and turned the subject on each occasion as I think it's very bad form.

carabos - "Never discuss politics or religion" was the accepted advice for generations and it was rooted in common sense.