As a longtime progressive political activist, I have found that many people, especially in today's "Bushed," deliberately job-scarce economy, are now hesitant to take part in any form of political activism--writing a letter to a newspaper, calling a radio talk show, posting something on the Internet, taking part in a march or a rally--for fear that their employer might somehow frown on such actions.

Ironically, the fear that many workers now have of employment discrimination based on their political activities is the very thing that keeps them from taking the steps, both as individuals and with others, to bring about an end to this and related abuses. It is also a significant brake on long-needed, long-overdue social and economic progress in America--indeed, to efforts to stop this country's headlong
rush, especially under George W. Bush and his ilk, back to the days of Herbert Hoover--indeed, of William McKinley.

Have any of you ever actually encountered employment discrimination for your own off-hours political activities, known of anyone else who has, or merely experienced the fear of it or encountered it from someone else?

If so, tell us your story on this board. Your experiences--and this vital issue--matter to us all.

Today, the Internet, credit bureaus, and like means make it frighteningly easy for employers to snoop into job applicants' or employees' personal beliefs and activities.

Indeed, five years ago, during a long job hunt after a layoff, I was once denied a plum job as an editor with a nonprofit educational association in part because of what the employer, when I challenged its vague (and contradiction-ridden) claim of things being simply a matter
of "subtle factors" involving "fit"--meanwhile, I suspected and alleged sex discrimination (the editorial department involved was all one gender, and stayed so)--called, in McCarthyesque terms, my "record" of involvement with "controversial matters," namely, feminism and children's rights--certainly never brought up in any interview or
correspondence, but found after the "responsible" employer decided to do an Internet search.

Employment discrimination based on one's off-the-job political activities, indeed, seems to have risen to a level not known since the era of McCarthyism, with its blacklisting and "political clearances."

For example, as has been widely reported, including in a story on CBS's _60 Minutes_, Lynne Gobbell of Alabama was in 2004 fired from her job at a manufacturing plant for having a John Kerry bumper sticker on her personal car. (After the case made world headlines, she was offered a job--indeed, one with health insurance--by the Kerry campaign, but few employees thus treated are that fortunate.)

This sleazy practice, too, while disturbing and reprehensible, is in many states (mine included) still legal.

Coupled with modern technology, this leads down even darker inroads against your and my most basic rights. In the name of making sure that only the "right" types of people are hired, perhaps in the name of making sure employees have the "right" attitudes and, to use that now-favorite corporate buzz word, are a good "fit" (read: are sufficiently cowed and properly docile to accept existing abuses and any possible future ones the employer might decide to inflict), why not require employees and job applicants to submit to employer monitoring--don't laugh; the technology for this is already widely available!--of whatever they, even (indeed, *especially*) on their own time and off employer premises, read, watch, or listen to; who they associate with
and what kinds of organizations they participate in; what Web sites they visit and what they send or receive online; and the like?

We can't have employees who read, much less write, postings like this one, read books like David Sirota's _Hostile Takeover_ or Thom Hartmann's _Screwed_, or otherwise explore, much less spread, ideas about "controversial matters" that the employer might not like, such as notions about fairer tax policies and a stronger "social safety net," or--horror of horrors--about (gasp!) employees and job applicants actually having rights and about even daring to regulate business to stop privacy abuses, pay inequities, the destruction of health-care, pension, and other benefits, or the like, now, can we?

Heaven knows that any such person might actually think--and question corporatocracy, get others to do the same, or, perhaps worst of all, even think that decent pay and benefits, due process on the job, and--gasp!--labor unions--are good things! Such people might actually start
spreading such ideas to fellow employees and other working people! Gotta protect that almighty bottom line and the freedom to select our employees and run our businesses as we see fit!

The power employers thus wield over every aspect of our lives--including our ability to seek and win improvements in our lives at work, in our pocketbooks, and elsewhere--must be ended.

We all need state and federal legislation like California's, which specifically forbids employers from dictating or attempting to dictate employees' political activity. Better yet, every state and Congress should adopt legislation, as a few states have, protecting the right of employees and job applicants to engage in any lawful off-hours, off-premises activities they choose without fear of employment discrimination.

Generally, such activities are none of an employer's business unless they pose an actual and substantial conflict of interest or otherwise materially and substantially impair one's ability to do one's job. Mere dislike of or disagreement with a worker's political views or skittishness about "company image" or possible "controversy" is not enough.

It is time to reclaim your and our rights--before they are lost forever, before we are all forced to live at the mercy of out-of-control employers in a nationwide, high-tech version of the company town that controls not only our work tasks but our other actions, our minds, and our souls "24/7." It is not about the bottom line; it's about
power and control. We, the people, must reclaim our rights.

In the famous words of Wisconsin Supreme Court chief justice Edward G. Ryan, words that indelibly impressed University of Wisconsin student Robert M. La Follette--later to be widely considered Wisconsin's greatest governor: "The question will arise, and arise in your day, though perhaps not fully in mine: 'Which shall rule--wealth or man? Which shall lead--money or intellect? Who shall fill public stations--educated and patriotic free men, or the feudal serfs of corporate wealth?'" (Of course, I'd prefer Ryan have used nonsexist language!)

So write your state and national lawmakers, your governor, and, yes, even President Bush, and urge them all to support legislation protecting the rights of employees and job applicants to engage in lawful off-hours, off-employer-premises activities without fear of employment discrimination.

Urge them also to replace the dangerous prevailing concept of "employment at will"--under which an employer, absent law or contract provision to the contrary, may fire any employee for any reason, no reason, or even a bad or morally wrong reason--with a "just cause" standard, similar to the law now in Montana.

Every worker deserves and has the right to this most basic of protections. "Employment at will" (read: employment at whim) literally does mean that "they can fire you if they don't like the way you part your hair." This, too, is outrageous. This must end.

As Alexander Hamilton said over 200 years ago, the power over a person's subsistence is a power over that person's will. The history of liberty and justice in America has often involved--in fact, required--regulating and limiting not only the power of our public governments but the power of such "private governments" as corporations and other
employers over individuals, their choices, and their rights. So take action today!

Let's say to employers: Our skills, attention, and loyalty are yours eight hours a day, 40 hours a week; the rest of our lives belong to us, and to us alone. For not only ourselves but our fellow citizens and future generations, we are taking back our lives, our privacy, and our rights.

For more information about these and related issues, check out these links:

http://www.workplacefairness.org/

http://www.workrights.org/issue_lifestyle/ld_legislative_brief.html

http://www.aclu.org/Privacy/Privacy.cfm?ID=14172&c=132

http://www.aclu.org/WorkplaceRights/WorkplaceRights.cfm?ID=8359&c=178

Let us all know what you think of this.

Thanks for your time and thought--and even more for your efforts!

"In a certain sense the suspicious Tories and militant
philistines are right: intellect *is* dangerous. Left free, there is
nothing it will not reconsider, analyze, throw into question."

--Richard Hofstadter, _Anti-intellectualism in American Life_ (1963)

We are all being herded onto the corporate plantation, to borrow an image from a recent Bill Moyer's speech. We can't be seen publicly talking about things or criticizing the way we are treated. The man in the "big house" might get ridiculed by his fellow plantation owners for not keeping us field hands in line.