Some Companies Pressure Employees to Lobby Legislators

The feverish legislative agenda to balance the state budget in recent weeks has flushed out more desperate political strategies by private businesses to protect their turf.

From the soda industry to payday lenders, employers have mobilized their workers in the biggest turnout in years to try to lobby lawmakers against reversing tax credits and other measures.

Workers have written opposition letters, burned up the phone lines and shown up in force at the Capitol.

Some employees, however, feel such requests are out of line, saying their employers took advantage of their authority, blurring the boundaries between workplace issues and personal politics.

The legality of such tactics is murky. Experts say Colorado employers, unlike in several other states such as California and North Carolina, enjoy wide latitude to nudge their workers into the political arena whether they like it or not.

"We don't have in Colorado a protection for political orientation," said Denise Kay, president of Employment Practices Solutions Inc., a national consulting firm.

That has given payday-lending companies latitude in recent years to close up shop for a day just so they could direct their employees, still on the clock, to a local hotel to be coached on what to say and not say to lawmakers backing measures to cap interest rates on payday loans.

Colorado court case law is scarce, attorneys say, on defining what constitutes coercion.

So many scenarios just remain legally untested, such as when Pepsi executives instructed hundreds of their employees this year to write letters protesting the new law rolling back tax credits on soda.

Pepsi officials say most of their workers supported the activity. Still, one employee told The Post that supervisors stood by some workers' desks as they wrote the missives.

Chris Howes, president of Colorado Retail Council, said that in most scenarios "employees are asking employers how they can help."

Such activities can still provoke lawsuits if even one worker disagrees with the cause. Employers often are advised to play it safe by not advocating political positions, Kay said.

"At a recent symposium, the consensus of attorneys was that employers very much had a right to educate so long as they didn't promote," she said.

California — like at least 14 other states — bars employers from pressuring workers to participate in politics, said Melissa Hart, University of Colorado associate professor of law.

One unfortunate result of Colorado's loose laws over the business of politics is that employers can create the illusion that their political position is strong, said Carlos Valverde, co-executive director of the Colorado Progressive Coalition.

"In some cases, it may appear to be grassroots politics when it's really AstroTurf," he said.

Miles Moffeit: 303-954-1415 or mmoffeit@denverpost.com