Forum Post: End Forced Donations to PACs among Corporate Employees!!

Can anyone generate, verify and circulate or post a list of corporations that force, or coerce their employees to contribute to certain PACs? See the article below. As far as I know, this practice is still very prevalent!   http://www.nytimes.com/1989/06/12/us/in-new-ethics-climate-a-concern-on-how-the-fund-raisers-operate.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm In New Ethics Climate, a Concern On How the Fund-Raisers Operate By RICHARD L. BERKE, Special to The New York Times Published: Monday, June 12, 1989

As members of Congress solicit more and more money from political action committees, PAC's are responding by seizing on new techniques to increase receipts, from putting pressure on potential donors to offering them free trips or cars.

They need more money because PAC contributions to incumbents, which totaled less than $20 million a decade ago, reached $115.3 million in the 1987-88 election cycle - or 40 percent of all the money that incumbents raised. For sums like that, the traditional appeals that dealt with policy and ideology have proved insufficient.

Critics of PAC's have long complained that the committees wield too much influence on lawmakers. Their arguments are now being heard on Capitol Hill, where there is a heightened interest in tightening ethics rules and campaign finance laws. Last week the White House also weighed in on the issue, with aides saying President Bush would propose the abolishing of corporate and union PAC's.

In this new atmosphere, another area that is bound to face scrutiny is how the PAC's operate and whether potential contributors feel free to say no.

''The current campaign finance system pressures PAC's into raising money and they, in turn, put pressure on potential donors,'' said William J. Baer, chairman of Lobbyists and Lawyers for Campaign Finance Reform and also a director of a PAC sponsored by the Arnold & Porter law firm here. ''The way the system is structured creates real potential for abuse. PAC giving is supposed to be voluntary.''

The new techniques used by PAC's to raise money appear to be working. Receipts to the Phillips Petroleum Company's PAC soared last year after donors were automatically entered into a ''holiday bonanza'' contest, with winners receiving expense-paid trips to Washington. The Mechanical Contractors Association of America saw its PAC's coffers swell when contributors could have a chance to win a new Cadillac for a $195 donation. Free Trips to Washington

Donations to the political action committee for Barnett Banks' 34 banks in Florida and Georgia are voluntary. But employees are spurred on by the bank presidents who serve as ''team captains.'' Captains who encourage 90 percent of their senior staff to sign up are rewarded with free trips to Washington and other perks.

Marty Farmer, who heads the Barnett Banks political action committee, said 96 percent of the company's 6,000 senior executives regularly contribute to the PAC.

''When you hear a number like that the general imagery must be, 'They're breaking bones in the alley,' '' Mr. Farmer said, adding that Barnett People for Better Government, as the PAC is called, owes its success not to strong-arm tactics, but to elaborate solicitation drives.

Federal election laws strictly forbid PAC's from extracting contributions ''by physical force, job discrimination, financial reprisals'' and other tactics. And only executive or high-level administrative personnel can be routinely solicited. Pressure Unavoidable, Some Say

Yet some fund-raising experts say pressure is unavoidable in many corporations and labor groups, which have come to expect senior employees to contribute. The pressure is sometimes so subtle that it is impossible to prove, although some PAC officials have been prosecuted for demanding contributions.

In the most recent case, two top officials of the failed Commodore Savings Association in Dallas were convicted in Federal court last month of conspiring to make illegal campaign contributions by requiring employees to contribute to the thrift's PAC and then reimbursing them.

Gwynne Autry, who was a vice president of Commodore, told the jury how the chairman, E. Morten Hopkins, made it clear that Ms. Autry had no choice but to contribute.

''When I asked about a PAC, I said, 'What does it do?' '' Ms. Autry recalled.

''And he said, 'Well, it's for campaigns.' ''And I said, 'Who do they donate to?' ''He said, 'Phil Gramm, Jim Mattox.' ''And I said, 'I don't like Jim Mattox.'

''And he said, ''Do you like your job?' '' 'Dedication to the Company'

In a well-publicized case three years ago, Robert D. Wright, the president of NBC, sought to establish a political action committee and wrote in a memorandum to company officials that ''employees who elect not to participate in a giving program of this type should question their own dedication to the company and their expectations"