Some Microsoft employees are questioning the company’s political donations

Like every other corporation, Microsoft makes political donations. The donations are made by the Microsoft Political Action Committee (MSPAC) Steering Committee, a bipartisan committee of federal and state government affairs professionals. This committee is responsible for disbursements from MSPAC and permissible employee and shareholder donations made by the program. A group of Microsoft employees have now raised concerns about MSPAC as they have no control over which candidates are being supported. MSPAC makes donations to both Republican and Democratic, so there is a chance that fund might go to a candidate who is not employee’s choice.

These group of employees want MSPAC to get input from donated employees to decide on which candidates should be supported. I’m not sure how this idea is practically possible. Every organization will have employees with different political views, so you can’t expect unanimous candidate selection among employees. May be Microsoft should conduct an internal poll before making donations.

“The company needs to lobby to the government,” one employee said. “But don’t ask employees for money. And if you do, ask how to spend it. That’s not the case [with MSPAC].”

Responding to this concern, Microsoft spokesperson gave the following statement to OneZero:

“Contribution decisions are made on a case-by-case basis and take into consideration a number of factors including the interests of our employees, and alignment with our public policy agenda. As we begin our new fiscal year next month, we will launch new advisory councils to help inform these decisions.”

Source: OneZero