Workers’ concerns prompt warning to SC employers about campaign donations

COLUMBIA — The state Ethics Commission wants to make this clear to employers: It is illegal in South Carolina to tell workers they must donate to a campaign and even suggest their job depends on it.

In response to questions received from worried workers this election season, the agency issued an advisory opinion about the state’s 35-year-old ban on providing employees “an advantage or disadvantage” based on their donation or refusal to give.

Questions from callers didn’t involve any particular candidate, the agency’s director, Meghan Dayson, said Monday.

The issue is “employers and their relationships with employees,” she told the SC Daily Gazette.

“Sometimes employers are banking on the imbalance of power in that relationship,” she said. “So, it can cause hesitancy on behalf of employees to say ‘no’ or to report violations to the commission. But we issued this advisory opinion as a warning to all employers in South Carolina.”

State law allows asking employees to donate to a candidate or party, but only if the boss makes clear the request is voluntary.

“An employee’s decision to contribute to political causes must remain free from employment-related coercion, intimidation, reward or retaliation,” reads the advisory opinion approved unanimously by the agency’s governing board last Thursday.

The agency “intends to vigorously enforce” the law, the opinion concludes.

By law, every illegal request can be fined $2,000.

The document issued last week represented the agency’s first formal notice about the prohibition, which is part of the state’s 1991 Ethics Act.

It’s unknown how widespread the problem is. But the agency got enough calls they realized it needed to be addressed, Dayson said, noting it’s rare for commissioners to have a special-called meeting.

“We understood this is something that we needed to get out before the election,” she said.

Without giving specifics about callers or their employers, Dayson said concerned involved employers threatening negative treatment.

For example, “if success at a specific company is tied to being a ‘team player,’ and being a team player is tied to contributing to a candidate, whether or not you actually support that candidate or not,” she said. Those are “the kinds of situations we’re looking at.”