|
One man, one vote, one boss: Laws
govern voting during working hours
By
Jenny C. McCune
Bankrate.com
The days of getting paid to vote have gone
the way of New York's Tammany Hall. However, while your workers
may not get paid to choose a particular candidate, they may get
paid while taking time off to cast their ballots.
Honest, Abe: 30 states have laws governing how
employers must treat time off to vote.
According to CCH
Incorporated, a provider of employment law information, services
and software, the regulations attempt to balance the needs of the
boss with the civic duty of the employee. As a business owner, be
sure you know the law. You could risk fines or jail time for interfering
in workers' voting.
Time-off-to-vote laws usually require that registered
voters get up to three hours off to visit the polls. The catch behind
most of these laws: If an employee has the time to vote before or
after work, the employer need not grant any time off. And in some
instances, according to CCH, employers may specify the hours to
be taken for voting.
Employers are specifically prohibited
from penalizing an employee or making wage deductions for at least
part of the time the employee is casting a vote. In fact, 20 states
demand that employees be paid for time spent voting. But five designate
that workers get their wages only if they actually vote.
And workers are not without
some responsibility. CCH found 17 states that require employees
give advance notice that they will miss part of the work day.
Fines and jail time
What about those fines we mentioned? They range
as low as $25 in Arkansas and as much as $2,500 in Arizona, Kansas
and Missouri for an individual employer. Arizona also provides for
fines up to $20,000 against the offending company.
Jail time -- from 30 days to a year -- is handed
out as punishment in only 12 states. Colorado and New York are especially
fussy about getting out the vote by letting workers out the door.
They not only hand out monetary fines and jail time, but can even
strip a business of its corporate charter if the company is found
in violation. That's a corporate death sentence.
In Hawaii, Maryland, Missouri, Oklahoma and
Wyoming, time-off-statutes mandate that workers be paid for their
time off only if they actually vote. That means if a small-business
owner can prove that instead of going to the polls, a worker headed
to the nearest sports bar to catch a ball game, the owner doesn't
owe the employee a dime. And the time off only applies to employees
who are registered and can, in fact, vote. The apathetic have to
punch in.
Letting the boss know
Advance notice of voting absence is required
in more than half of the states with time-off-for-voting laws, with
Iowa and West Virginia workers obliged to let the boss know beforehand
in writing.
Employers in 20 states even get to specify what
hours employees may take off to vote. So while your rank and file
may like calling it a day at 3 p.m. so they head home after exiting
the polls, in these jurisdictions, the boss can say the voting hour
will be between noon and 1 p.m.
Although this might be the first time such statutes
have come to your attention, time-off-to-vote laws have been on
the books for some time. Laws requiring paid-time-off-for-voting
were upheld in 1952 by the U.S. Supreme Court in a pair of decisions
involving Missouri and California companies and their employees.
The winning argument: Such laws are a proper exercise of the police
power of the state.
|
