Later today, millions of Americans will gather around the digital water cooler to gloat or moan about the results of last night’s dramatic New Hampshire presidential primary election. (Millions of others are already sick to death of the world’s longest election campaign, but today they must just go thirsty.)

For as US presidential election campaigns go, this one has more drama than most: will a black man beat a white woman to stand as the Democratic candidate to be America’s first non-white-male president? And what about all those Republicans, busy slitting each others’ throats to carve out a majority: can any of them beat a Democrat? Normally, we Americans wear our politics lightly; I hardly know the political allegiance of my closest family members, let alone my friends. But Hillary and Barack and Mitt and Mike are the kind of candidates who get people talking – even in the political wasteland of the American workplace.

But the water cooler – or its digital analogue, the company e-mail system – can be a dangerous place in election year. Talking politics can be grounds for dismissal. Of course, in most American states, so can anything else: as the legal cliché has it, employees in most states can be sacked for a good reason, a bad reason, or no reason at all – unless they are black or old or female or in some cases gay and can prove they were fired because of it. During the last presidential campaign, one woman lost her job for sporting a “Kerry for President” bumper sticker; she could not find a lawyer to help sue her boss.

A few states protect employees from retaliation for their off-duty political activities. But when it comes to political chit-chat on the job, bosses can largely have their way. They can, if they like, fire all Democrats, and keep only those who swear allegiance to Mike Huckabee (the Wal-Mart candidate for president, the Bible-belting-Baptist from Wal-Mart’s home state of Arkansas, who won the Iowa Republican caucuses). The boss could even drag everyone into the cafeteria on their lunch hour to hear him proselytise on behalf of Mr Huckabee, or any other presidential contender. That is one of the joys of American capitalism: those who love their jobs had better learn to love the boss’s candidate. Employers can face multi-million dollar fines under US campaign finance law for using company resources like phones or e-mail – or even employees’ time – to benefit a political candidate; but firing employees for their political views will usually land them in no trouble. For Americans leave their freedom of speech at the door when they enter the American workplace – at least if they work for private employers, who are not covered by the first amendment to the US constitution, which protects only against government muzzling. Few seem to mind – even at election time, says Dan Prywes, an employment law expert at the law firm Bryan Cave. “Most people understand that employers are entitled to expect employees to be working in the workplace and not politicking,” he says.

“An employer has every right to complain about people talking politics when they are supposed to be working,” says Lewis Maltby, a worker rights advocate at the National Workrights Institute. Employers say they are lucky to get six good hours of work out of an eight-hour employee day as it is: who needs politics to distract them further?

Employers also have every legal right to snoop on employee e-mails about politics if they are sent by corporate e-mail. But Mr Maltby points out that the boss’s interest in the topic does not always end there: US employers are increasingly monitoring workers’ off-duty blogs, and disciplining them for what they say there – either because it might embarrass the company, or because they simply disagree with it. Snooping on a blog is much easier than eavesdropping in the lunchroom.

Even the dimmest employee will surely quickly realise that there is one simple way to evade the tyranny of the water cooler: stick to the small talk. American workers may have no freedom of political speech in the office, but they still have total freedom in the ballot booth. The boss can tell them how he wants them to vote – but he has no way to know if they do so.

patti.waldmeir@ft.com
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