Corporate Execs, GOP Firm Launch Stealth Ballot Campaign Against Georgia Workers’ Rights

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EXCLUSIVE: Corporate Execs, GOP Firm Launch Stealth Ballot Campaign Against Georgia Workers’ Rights



When Georgia voters go to the polls this November, they will not only be voting for candidates for local, state, and federal office, but they will also be faced with five ballot amendments. The first amendment on the ballot is phrased innocuously enough:

Shall the Constitution of Georgia be amended so as to make Georgia more economically competitive by authorizing legislation to uphold reasonable competitive agreements?”

Who wouldn’t want to make the state more “economically competitive” by simply upholding “reasonable” competitive agreements? Yet, what voters may not know when they read their ballot is that it was put there by a campaign being backed by some of the state’s biggest corporate entities and strikes at the heart of the ability for workers to freely choose where, when, and how they work.

Currently, the state’s constitution prohibits employers within the state from making contracts that have the effect of “defeating or lessening competition.” This is essentially the purpose that non-compete clauses within employment contracts serve. Employers that utilize these provisions to prevent employees from freely working where, how, and when they choose after they switch employers. For example, a hardware store could use a non-compete agreement to ensure that any employee that leaves does not work for any of its competitors or even within the same industry for a number of years of its choosing. The hardware store would use the threat of lawsuits to enforce the contract.

Because of the wording of Georgia’s constitution, these clauses must be very narrowly written and are otherwise very difficult to enforce. The proposed amendment would strike “defeating or lessening competition” from the text of the constitution, giving judges much greater leeway to rule overbroad non-compete clauses constitutional, making it easier for judges to side with employers during litigation. Judges will also be “authorized to ‘blue pencil’ an unreasonable restrictive covenant to make it ‘reasonable’, making it much more likely” that employers win their lawsuits.

The main political force organizing in favor of amendment one is a group calling itself Jobs of Tomorrow. On its website, Jobs of Tomorrow implores voters to “keep jobs in Georgia” by voting for amendment one to close “loopholes in employment law.” While the website features pictures of happy office workers of every race, gender, and age, it does not mention who is actually organizing and funding the group.

Yet a perusal through the group’s filing documents with the Secretary of State reveals the three individuals who were responsible for its incorporation earlier this month. Its CEO is Duane Ackerman, its CFO is Tammi Stollberg, and SEC is Claudia Levitas:





Who are Ackerman, Stollberg, and Levitas? They aren’t grassroots Americans demanding harsher contracts to stop employees from competing with their former employers. Duane Ackerman is the former CEO of telecom Bellsouth; he was also responsible for merging the company with AT&T and the layoffs of thousands of workers. He currently sits on the board of directors for Home Depot, UPS, and Allstate Corporation, all three of which have major operations in the state and a profit motive for stifling competition. Stollberg is currently the Vice President of Finance at the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, the lobbying arm of the state’s most powerful corporations. Claudia Levitas is the Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Georgia-based diner chain Huddle House. Rather than being grassroots Americans, the founders of the campaign are all well-connected corporate insiders who stand to benefit from an amendment that would make it easier for corporations to prevent their former employees from competing with them.

To do the graphic design and communications work for the campaign, the corporate executives sought out the elite Republican public relations the Stoneridge Group. Stoneridge has specialized in running projects for leading Republican campaign, including John McCain for President and Nathan Deal for Governor.

While these corporate executives and the Georgia Chamber of Commerce have worked hard to build this astroturf campaign to promote this anti-worker amendment, the economics of their argument falls flat. Jobs of Tomorrow maintains that stronger and more enforceable non-compete agreements will lead to job growth in the state, yet there is a wealth of empirical evidence that shows that they have actually stifled innovation and job growth. A comprehensive study by the University of Toronto in 2008 found that California’s outlawing of non-compete agreements helped it develop the innovation that was found in Silicon Valley and led to the decline of the Route 128 technology sector in Massachussetts, which allows very strict non-compete agreements. Additionally, researchers in a 2009 Harvard University study found that job mobility among “individuals who had firm specific skills or who specialized in a narrow range of technologies” fell more than 15 percent in the state of Michigan after it reversed a ban on non-compete agreements.