Is it ethical?

wymondham

.... for an employer to send emails etc to their employee's 'encouraging' them to vote in a certain way on the EU referendum?

Both sides seem to be doing this...

Surely this is inappropriate?

Out,_Vile_Jelly

The Head of my Dept has done this; not explicitly telling people how to vote, but describing possible consequences of a Leave vote (in a university context) and why that means they will vote Remain. It was cleared by the top bigwig, but I personally think it's inappropriate either way.

wotsthat

Knowing which of the two outcomes an employer would prefer seems like a valuable piece of information.

chris_m

wotsthat wrote: »

Knowing which of the two outcomes an employer would prefer seems like a valuable piece of information.

Especially if they give properly thought-out reasons as to why they consider a certain course of action will be better for the company - unlike the politicians.

Spidernick

I don't know about unethical - bl00dy condescending though!

CLAPTON

it would be useful if the employer could help the emplyees vote : maybe filling in the postal vote for them

mayonnaise

Employers shouldn't be telling employees how to vote, no.
But pointing out that a vote to leave would see future investment cancelled or reduced, or the business moved to the continent is just plain good practice.
In case of a brexit, at least the P45 won't come as much of a surprise anymore.

Malthusian

Everyone and his dog is on Facebook and the news encouraging me to vote one way or another. What did your employer do to forfeit his/her right to free speech?

If he said "vote Remain or you're fired", that would be unethical.

CLAPTON

I guess no different from businesses encouraging their staff how to vote in general elections : explaining how voting labour would cause massive job loses, higher costs, less investment, lower pensions etc

mayonnaise

Here's for example the letter Airbus sent to its employees.

Dear UK Colleagues,
The Prime Minister has called a June referendum on the future of the UK in Europe – BREXIT as it has
become known - do we stay in the European Union or do we leave?
Airbus Group has come out strongly in favour of the UK staying in the EU. As a successful international
company with a strong European heritage we are proud that much of the world flies on British-built wings.
We are proud to be the biggest commercial aerospace company in the UK; Britain’s leading space and
satellite company; the biggest supplier of large aircraft to the RAF; a bastion of our nation’s cyber defence;
Britain’s civil helicopter hub; a massive investor in R&D and a leading employer of highly qualified
technicians, engineers and scientists.
Why do we mention all these achievements? Because Airbus Group’s success in the UK is predicated on a
highly competitive, integrated European business model. Our position, which probably does not come as a
great surprise to you, is we firmly believe that it makes good economic sense to stay inside the EU which has
helped make the company the global success story it is today. Apart from anything else, we simply don’t
know what ‘out’ looks like.
As has been stressed publicly by our top management, this is an entirely UK issue – it is up to the British
people to debate and make up their own minds as to whether or not they wish to stay in the EU. However it
is also reasonable for us as a responsible UK leadership team to explain to you why we think it is important
for us to stay.
Should the British electorate have a different view then clearly we wouldn’t cease our activities in the UK,
which are highly important and very prominent. However, our business model is entirely based on our
ability to move products, people and ideas around Europe without any restriction and we do not believe
leaving will increase the competitiveness of our British based operations. We all need to keep in the back of
our minds that future investments depend very much on the economic environment in which the company
operates.
In fact we believe that the UK remaining active in reforming the EU can improve our position, and as a
commercial business that operates in a globally competitive environment we need to maintain every
competitive advantage in the UK we have.
Whilst we hope the UK will choose to retain its EU membership, the final important point to make is that
Airbus Group remains fully committed to its operations in the UK and to its employees here.

Nothing wrong here.
Of course an angry radical little england supremacist will have an issue with this, but who cares?

System

CLAPTON wrote: »

I guess no different from businesses encouraging their staff how to vote in general elections

I agree. It would be within their rights if a company emailed all their employees advising them to vote Conservative, but rather dubious, and also surely potentially risky for the company. Why risk needlessly angering half your employees?

They might also need to check that their expenditure on direct canvassing during the run-up period might need to be declared to the Electoral Commission.