Way back in the day, I was in a union and the national reps would announce a vote for leadership positions coming up and later for a vote pro or con for a national strike. Our local reps held meetings with all of us to tell us whom we were to vote for, period. When I became outspoken about decisions being made, especially objecting to a yes vote on a strike, I was confronted in the lounge by two of the older reps and threatened. Soon thereafter, I found my locker was being accessed and my coffee cup would be filled with dirty cigarette butts when I'd come in to work in the morning. Both reps were cigarette smokers.

In another job where we had to pay dues to local and national organizations, the leadership at the top would tell us our dues were going to particular political parties. We never took a vote on who the money should go to or whether that was the best use of our dues. It was always to a candidate / party I did not support.

In another completely unrelated industry, in one of our regular weekly sales meetings, our sales manager had invited a rep from the United Way, which is a very political organization (in my opinion) that (back then) kept 95% of the money for 'overhead' giving 5% to the actual charity. And local politicians were on the payroll. I did not want my money to go to them.

The manager passed out envelopes with our names on them. They were different colors. He announced that one color showed you gave last year above a certain $, the next color was a donation below this $, and the next color showed you didn't give anything the previous year! It was clearly meant to shame and intimidate. He said for us to get out our checkbooks and put a damn check in it for United way and to have it ready and he'd get it from us. He went row by row in our meeting room to collect the checks. I handed him an empty envelope. I do not cotton to coercion.