[kindarooster]

Not that I think this is a bad idea but by the current nature of tech it's somewhat biased. Give more educated white males more time to participate in politics.

I would rather see the money spent on time off go to compensating part-time working minorities to participate in politics.

[LordKano]

I'm an educated(M.S.), full time working, CIS, male, hetero, minority. Doesn't my voice contribute to diversity too?

[kindarooster]

Like or or not, a policy like this unfairly amplifies the voice of the majority and weakens your voice as a minority due to the nature of tech companies.

A fund that dispersed compensation to people in a way that properly reflects the diversity of this country would be more fair. Tech companies and their workers do not represent the diversity of this country. That's all I'm saying.

Specify part-time working minorities was probably a little too specific, but these people represent a large portion of the population and I don't know how one is supposed to participate in politics when one is having trouble making rent.

[wry_discontent]

Somebody's trying to help? Better find an unhelpful way to complain about it.

[kindarooster]

One of the huge underlying issues here as a country is lack of understanding and communication across groups. If I was trying to help, but I was actually doing something that hurts out of ignorance, then I hope someone would point it out to me.

Again, I think the intentions are good but the execution has unconsidered side effects.

[eaceaser]

I think the answer to this is to do more to educate the individuals who will take advantage of this policy so that the actions they take help give a voice to or amplify the voice of part-time working minorities or other marginalized groups.

In other words, I believe we should laud all attempts to build a culture of civic engagement, no matter what your political beliefs are or your personal background. The next step is to help find ways for that civic engagement to be generally helpful rather than harmful.

full disclosure: i work at one of the companies named on this proposal

[LordKano]

I don't believe there is any perfect system.

Don't people who work part time already have time to do civic engagement?

Paying for them to do so would have the effect of amplifying their voice at the expense of others.

[thinkingfish]

The nature of tech work means employees generally have more flexibility with their time, and can afford such involvement without jeopardizing their productivity or job. It is thus hard to quantify how much money it costs for such engagement.

I'm not disagreeing with your concern, but the mechanisms are a little different. As a result my opinion is that giving money to improve civic engagement among minorities, the poor, and under-privileged population is better discussed as a separate initiative.

That said, anybody can focus on projects that improve political engagement (making voting easier, help people find information about local politics) without bringing their political opinion/preference to the table.

[mccv]

Interesting. From my standpoint (CEO of a company that co-signed here) this isn't money spent. We already have a flexible vacation policy, and this just makes it explicit that civic engagement can be counted against that. Agree that it does amplify the voice of tech as a demographic, which is, sadly, not reflective of the general U.S. population.

The flip side is that a fund dedicated to compensating part-time working minorities to participate in politics would likely be painted as "protest checks". Would love to tease this out more though.

[kindarooster]

I love the idea of encouraging civic engagement. And there are probably things that can be done on a political level to make the playing field more even. We have the responsibility of making those things happen and supporting civil engagement via vacation policy is a good way to enable it.

It's just easy to forgot sometimes that many of us do come from a place of privilege so it's good to remind ourselves of it sometimes.

It's odd to me the government doesn't incentive participation in politics more and yet we have things like compulsory jury duty.

[jchrisa]

Oregon has a tax credit for political donations. http://oregontaxcredit.com