At all levels of government, businesses dominate interest-group representation in the United States. This does not mean that business interests always get what they want from government, but it does mean that wherever and whenever government decisions are made, businesses almost always have a proverbial “seat at the table.” The primary reason that businesses are so politically ubiquitous is that they have a lot more money than others to spend on political activity. This is a bit of an oversimplification, of course, but sometimes things are exactly as they seem.
The corpus of scholarship on business political activity (often referred to as corporate political activity, or CPA) has grown substantially, and we now know considerably more about the phenomenon than we did even a few short years ago. In his new book Politics at Work, Alexander Hertel-Fernandez contributes to this scholarship in an impressive, unique, and necessary way. Hertel-Fernandez examines what he calls employer mobilization of workers, which entails “the top managers of a company” attempting “to change the political behaviors and attitudes of their employees as a matter of company policy” (p. 4). The author is correct that this phenomenon has received too little media and scholarly attention.
In Chapter 2, Hertel-Fernandez briefly describes how he set out to study employer mobilization: through original surveys of workers and employers and congressional staffers, as well as a close reading of investigative journalism and the media record (p. 40). At the center of the book are several original surveys. First, in Chapter 3, Hertel-Fernandez describes the results of a survey of more than 500 corporate executives (and a follow-up survey with nearly 400 of these respondents). He reports that “46 percent of managers” surveyed “reported that their company attempted some form” of employer mobilization (p. 44). Among this 46%, “29 percent reported providing exclusively information about registering or turning out to vote,” while the “remaining 71 percent gave their workers more explicitly political information about candidates and policy issues” (p. 45). When asked what their goals were in contacting their employees, managers cited educating workers first (over half of those who reported mobilizing workers said they did so with this goal in mind), while 41% cited changing public policy. Finally, when queried, top managers cited employee mobilization as more effective than any influence strategy other than hiring lobbyists (pp. 48–49).
In Chapter 4, the author reports the results of a survey of 1,032 non-self-employed American workers. He finds that “about one in four American employees . . . reported ever experiencing some form of political contact with the top managers at their main job” (p. 71). The most common types of messages from managers to employees concerned policy issues (36% of contacted workers reported receiving this type of message), turning out to vote (31%), and registering to vote (22%). Employees reported receiving messages on a variety of issues, including health care, education and training, taxes, and regulation. Conservative messages outnumbered moderate and liberal messages. A disturbingly high number of employees (20% of those who reported contact from managers) reported receiving warnings of job loss or plant closure or decreases in wages or hours with their employers’ messages (pp. 77–81). Finally, a large number—47% of contacted employees—reported that employer messages altered at least one of their political attitudes or practices (p. 84). In short, employer mobilization worked.
Chapters 3 and 4 are largely descriptive, and this is for the best. To understand and explain a phenomenon we must first describe it, and Hertel-Fernandez is the first scholar I know of who has so thoroughly and precisely described employer mobilization of employees. These chapters (and indeed, all the others) are essential additions to the canon on business and politics.
In Chapter 5, Hertel-Fernandez notes, on the one hand, that businesses have always been active in American politics but, on the other hand, that the widespread employer mobilization of employees is probably relatively new (though there is no way to be certain, as time series data on the phenomenon do not exist). A number of factors, including the Citizens United case (which had far-reaching implications for business political activity outside of elections), technological improvements that make connecting with employees easier and cheaper than ever, and a decline in the bargaining power of workers, appear to explain the increase in employer mobilization.
Part II, which comprises Chapters 6–9 and the Conclusion, is leaner than Part I. It asks: What difference does employer mobilization make? Another way to ask this question is: Does employer mobilization actually affect government decisions? Unfortunately, Hertel-Fernandez does not provide us with a definitive answer to either of these questions. But this is not his fault, as answering either question definitively is next to impossible, as generations of scholars who have sought to understand and explain interest-group influence can attest.
Yet the results are suggestive at the very least. In Chapter 6, the author shows via a survey experiment that workers do indeed respond to employer efforts to affect their opinions. On the results of a survey experiment conducted on workers he reports: “Workers change their minds on political issues based on fictional employer messages” (p. 149). Also on the basis of data gathered from survey experiments, Hertel-Fernandez concludes that workers are more likely to contact members of Congress if their employers ask them to, and that workers attain political knowledge from their employers. Finally, he shows that employer messages can stimulate participation among workers. In sum, Chapter 6 shows that the immediate goal of employer mobilization—to affect the opinions or attitudes or behavior of workers—is often met.
Does this mean that employer mobilization actually affects government decisions? Hertel-Fernandez addresses this question in Chapter 7. First, he shows, via a survey of 101 congressional staffers, that employer mobilization can be effective. Fully 92% of the congressional staffers he surveyed “reported that having businesses mobilize workers to support members’ electoral campaigns was useful” (p. 165). Moreover, as a group, congressional staffers “have a strong bias in favor of correspondence from private-sector employees, above and beyond ordinary constituents” (p. 169). Staffers, Hertel-Fernandez reports, are “more attuned” to the opinions of private-sector employees than they are to the opinions of either ordinary constituents or members of citizen groups (p. 169). Second, the author briefly conducts two case studies of specific policy battles—first, a fight over an oil-producer tax repeal in Alaska in 2014 and, second, the battle over the Affordable Care Act—in which employer mobilization was prominent. Unfortunately, in neither case does Hertel-Fernandez have a direct measure of employer mobilization, and so the results of the case studies are suggestive (though strongly so), rather than conclusive.
Chapter 8 examines the activities of BIPAC (Business-Industry Political Action Committee)—a national organization whose mission is to help businesses in their efforts to mobilize their employees for political purposes—in an effort to show that businesses are indeed often successful in increasing voter turnout among their employees. Using data from BIPAC itself, Hertel-Fernandez shows that “states with the most intensive BIPAC mobilization campaigns” had the highest rates of employee vote support for Republican gubernatorial candidates (p. 193). He also shows that the more top managers of a company contributed money to a particular candidate, the more employees of that company contributed to the same candidate.
In Chapter 9 and his conclusion, Hertel-Fernandez ends with a discussion of what all of this means for American democracy. His thoughts are important, compelling, and balanced (he does not, for example, dismiss the possibility that a political workplace might be a net-plus for democracy and civic engagement). Nevertheless, he closes by decrying the fact that a great deal of employer mobilization of employees is essentially coerced (either directly or indirectly). This is indeed troubling, and I find the author’s suggestions for regulating the practice of coercion in all its forms eminently reasonable.
Politics at Work is an important addition to the growing literature on business and politics in the United States. The book presents new and unique data, asks novel and important questions, and highlights numerous normative concerns that deserve a great deal of thought.
